
Book AJiS — - 



YOICE FROM THE SOUTH : 




COMPRISING 



LETTERS FROM 



GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS, 



THE SOUTHERN STATES. 



APPENDIX 



CONTAINING AN ARTICLE FROM THE CHARLESTON MERCURY ON THE WILMOT PROVISO, TOGE- 
THER WITH THE FOURTH ARTICLE OF THE CONSTITUTION, THE LAW OF CONGRESS, 
THE NULLIFICATION LAW OF PENNSYLVANIA, THE RESOLUTIONS OF 
TEN OF THE FREE STATES, THE RESOLUTIONS OF VIRGINIA, 
GEORGIA AND ALABAMA, AND MR. CALHOUN'S RE- 
SOLUTIONS IN THE SENATE OF THE 
UNITED STATES. 



BALTIMORE: 

SAMUEL E. SMITH, 
PUBLISHER AND BOOKSELLER, 

No. 1 SUN BUILDINGS, 

S. E. CORNER BALTIMORE AND GAY STREETS. 
1847. 





WILL THE SOUTH SUSTAIN A LITERARY JOURNAL? 

TIE WESTERN CONTINENT 

A POPULAR SOUTHERN FAMILY NEWSPAPER, 

NEUTRAL IN POLITICS AND RELIGION. 



At a time when nearly every publication that emanates from the northern press — lite- 
rnry, religious and political — is impregnated with sentiments hostile to the interests, and 
intuiting to the feelings of the people of the South, — when the enemies of Southern In- 
stitutions are organizing for a bold and formidable invasion of Southern Rights, and 
when professed Abolition papers are sustained within our borders by contributions from 
Northern Societies, — when the most important political issues of the day, are being 
merged in that of Abolitionism, — the vital necessity of at least one popular medium, 
in which Southern views may be uttered, and Southern interests vindicated, free from 
the bias of political or sectarian prejudice, must be apparent to all. 

With a view to supply such a journal, the Western Continent has been established in 
Baltimore. This position wasselected as being the furthest Southern point which offered 
the necessary facilities for a successful competition with the large weeklies e-f the Nor- 
thern cities. The success of the paper thus far has abundantly attested the correctness 
of our views, and we feel that is only necessary to make the Continent known to the 
public to whose interest it is devoted, to secure for it a general circulation. 

The Western Continent is a paper of the largest size, printed on good paper and_with 
fair type, and in all the characteisrtics of a 

POPULAR FAMILY JOURNAL 

Will compare favorably with the best weeklies of the country. It has been the aim 
of the editors to preserve a high moral tone, and to maintain an elevated standard of 
literary excellence, giving to its contents such varied character as to interest and in- 
struct all minds, and please all tastes. 

THE CURRENT NEWS OF THE DAY— Foreign and Domestic, is carefully 
compiled for the Continent, special pains being taken to comprehend every thing of 
interest to the Southern reader. 

TALES, SKETCHES, ESSAYS AND POEMS— Original and Selected, of the 
highest merit, will always be found in the colums of the Continent, it being our fixed 
determination to admit none others. 

THE LADIES' DEPARTMENT— With a view to make this department useful and 
entertaining to our Lady readers, we have secured the aid of an accomplished and ta- 
lented vouko lady of this city, who will preside over the columns devoted to their 
interests. 

MAJOR JONES edits the Humorous Department, in which will be fonnd, every 
week, original stories and sketches from his pen and from his numerous correspon- 
dents, as well as his choicest selections from various sources, with his comments on 
matters and things in general. 

DOMBEY AND SON. — This popular work, justly" classed among the ablest pro- 
ductions of Mr. Dickens, is given in entire parts immediately on its arrival in this 
country. 

Our close proximity to the great Political, Commercial and Literary Emporiums of 
the country, enables us to disseminate the LATEST INTELLIGENCE on all sub- 
jects as promptly as any of our northern cotemporaries ; and as our paper is as large, 
cheap, and we trust as good, we feel that we have at least an equal claim with the 
worthiest of them to the patronage of the Southern Public, to whose peculiar interests 
our Journal is especially devoted. Determined to do all in our power to merit their 
patronage, it is most respectfully solicited. Address, post-paid, 

W. T. THOMPSON, Editor. 

Single copy of the Continent one year, $2 — Three copies, $5 — Seven copies, $10 — 
Twelve copies, $15 — Seventeen copies, #20. 



i>5 



A VOICE FROM THE SOUTH. 



A 



VOICE FROM THE SOUTH : 



COMPRISING 



LETTERS FROM 

GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS, 



THE SOUTHERN STATES. 



APPENDIX 



CONTAINING AN ARTICLE FROM THE CHARLESTON' MERCURY ON THE WILMOT PROVISO, TOGE- 

THER WITH THE FOURTH ARTICLE OF THE CONSTITUTION, THE LAW OF CONGRESS, 

THE NULLIFICATION LAW OF PENNSYLVANIA, THE RESOLUTIONS OF 

TEN OF THE FREE STATES, THE RESOLUTIONS OF VIRGINIA, 

GEORGIA AND ALABAMA, AND MR. CALHOUN'S RE- 

SOLUTIONS IN THE SENATE OF THE 

UNITED STATES. 

/ 




BALTIMORE 



^ 



WESTERN CONTINENT PRESS. 

1847. 



fcT- 
*L%*> — 



INTRODUCTION. 



The interest with which the following letters have been generally read, and 
the claims of the South, to a fair hearing at the bar of public opinion, upon the all-ex- 
citing subject of Slavery, have induced us to place them in a permanent form. We 
think they will commend themselves to every candid and impartial reader, both as 
to their style and matter. We do not profess to be an impartial judge of their mer- 
its, Southern as we are in all our feelings ; but we hardly think we are so far biased 
by our prejudices, as to misjudge when we say, that most readers will rise from the 
perusal of this pamphlet more favorably disposed towards Georgia than Massachu- 
setts. 

In order to a proper appreciation of these letters, the reader must remember 
that the Author speaks throughout, in the character of a Sovereign State, which 
had long been abused by the Abolitionists, and which had received some persona] 
aggressions from Massachusetts, in regard to her Slave property and other things . 
as indeed had Virginia, South Carolina, and Louisiana. Massachusetts may well 
be considered the mother of Abolitionism ; indeed her State Abolition Society lays 
claim to this honor for her; and no one will dispute it with her. She has been the 
most restless agitator upon this subject by far, of any State in the Union. 

But a few years back, a Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, a citi- 
zen of Georgia, and one of the most holy, zealous Christians belonging to that 
Church, and distinguished for the extent and the success of his labors among the 
Blacks, married a lady who owned Slaves, which upon his marriage he made over 
to her. At the next General Conference of that Church, he was arraigned for this 
act by the Abolitionists, and by a vote of the Anti-Slaveholders, he was required to 
desist from his official duties until he should absolve himself from his connection 
with Slavery. This produced a division of that Church; thirteen Annual Confer- 
ences and about five hundred thousand members, moving off from the old, and form- 
ing a new Ecclesiastical connection. About the same time a split occurred in the 
Baptist Church, by reason of plain encroachments of the rights of Southern mem- 
bers, on the ground of Slavery. In the mean time, Congress had been harassed at 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

every Session with numberless petitions — of which Mr. Adams was usually made 
the conduit-pipe — upon the subject of Slavery, over which every body who is not 
wilfully blind knows Congress has no authority. At length came the Wilmot 
Proviso, a copy of which is appended to these letters. About the time that it was 
in progress, we wrote to the Author of Georgia's Letters, informing him among 
other things, of the stand which we had taken upon the subject of Abolitionism, and 
of the alarming extent to which it was growing, and of which we knew the people 
of Georgia were generally profoundly ignorant; for Abolition papers are excluded 
from that State by statute. This brought him out in the character and in the de- 
fence of Georgia. This character he sustains throughout, and of course he speaks 
with the independence and severity of a Sovereign State long trampled upon and 
insulted by one that w-as but an equal to say the least of it. 

Georgia's position would have justified even the most intemperate recrimi- 
nation, in addressing Massachusetts — for Massachusetts was the chief agent in 
fastening Slavery upon her ; and if this fact, as one of the British Reviews says, 
does not justify a Slave State in supporting Slavery, it certainly justifies her in look- 
ing for courtesy from those who fastened the institution upon her, and in demanding 
silence from them, until they will point out some practicable mode of getting rid of 
it. No such mode does any of them point out — nothing like courtesy does she re- 
ceive from any of them. She has a right to demand of all the Free States, whose 
Slaves have been sold at the South, that they shall each at fair prices purchase back 
as many as they sold, with their proportionate increase, before they abuse her and 
complot her ruin, by endeavoring to hem in the whites and blacks until they cannot 
live on the same territory. This openly avowed purpose, is monstrous— shocking . 
and when we consider that it was actually in a course of experiment by the Wil- 
mot Proviso when Georgia took the pen, we will rather wonder at her temperance 
and self-command than at her severity. She is the greatest cotton growing State 
in the Union, and to her Cotton is Massachusetts mainly indebted for what she is 
worth. If she would return to Georgia all that she has made by manufacturing her 
produce and carrying it to market, and trading with her, with interest on it, Georgia 
would this day be able to buy Massachusetts, and yet have enough to live on. We 
are ourselves, to a certain extent, protectionists, and we do not believe that GeoTgia 
has suffered as much by that system, as she thinks she has; but in reading these 
letters, we must remember what Georgia thinks, and has ever thought. Her opin- 
l on has ever been that the constantly descending price of her great staple is owing 
to the tariff; and if this be true, she has lost millions annually for thirty years by 
the very policy which has built up Massachusetts. This, all must accord to her; 
thai she has asked nothing but to be let alone in the management of her own con- 
cerns. Now, with these views, to find herself abused by Massachusetts, and the 
Northern States making common cause with Massachusetts against her, and in their 
attacks unsettling the very foundations of the Government, was well calculated to 
drive her to desperation ; and every candid reader will, as we have intimated, rather 
admire her equanimity, than condemn her severity, cuttingtand excoriating as some 
ill' her remarks are. We think her vindication of herself complete ; and that when 
the storms of Abolitionism shall have blown over, or overset the Republic, history 
will not place her below Massachusetts, in anything that constitutes the real worth 
of a nation. 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

It was not the original intention of Georgia, to have done more than to have 
vindicated herself from the attacks of the Abolitionists, and to have compared her - 
self with Massachusetts, in those traits of character which distinguish them aa 
members of one family ; but upon learning that her letters would be pamphleted, 
(and perhaps upon our request to extend them,) she determined to make her defence 
more complete ; and to extend it to the many false rumors and impressions which 
were current in the world in regard to Slavery, and its effects upon Southern char- 
acter. 

If these letters affect others as they have us, we think Georgia has laid the 
Southern States under lasting obligations to her. The force of them lies in this : 
that they are true to the letter ; and will be found so upon the strictest examination 
of impartial history. 

This way of bringing the States in comparison with each other, is well cul~ 
culated to have a fine moral effect upon the States themselves, as it will teach them 
to be careful how, for a time-serving purpose, they depart from the line of rectitude. 
Georgia says in one of her letters to us ; " I am obnoxious to some pretty severe 
raps for my own past conduct, which I suppose I shall get. Well, let them come ; 
they will teach me better for the future ; and teach others, that in the end, the 
strait course is always the best course. What I have said, however, will be found 
true, viz : that my faults have been such as affect no body but myself; those of 
Massachusetts have been obtrusive, contagious, and I fear are likely to become mor- 
tal to the body politic. I thought the time had come for some one to speak in de- 
fence of the South, if her sons did not intend to be fibbed out of their character as 
well as choused of their rights." 

In another letter Georgia says : " Writing under a sense of wrongs, long 
continued and unprovoked — and in full view of the dangers which threaten the 
country from these wrongs, and with the branding-iron of Abolitionism still upon 
me, (hear them talk of " Southern Intolerance!") I find that I have been frequently 
betrayed into feelings too warm, and expressions too harsh." Accordingly, upon 
learning that these letters were to be put in the present form, Georgia has softened 
some of the severer passages in them. We think she need not have been so scru- 
pulous, for surely the South has borne enough, and long enough, to weary the pa- 
tience of Job himself. It is a singular fact, that even complaint of Abolition en- 
croachment on the part of any son of the South, is called " Southern Intolerance ;" 
and we are given to understand, that even this will not be allowed by the North* 
Truly we have fallen upon strange times ! 

For the information of the Southern public, we have added, as a valuable 
Appendix to these Letters, the article from the Charleston Mercury of the 11th 
August, in which the aggressive and revolutionary tendency of the Wilmot Pro- 
viso is most ably set forth by the editor. The Appendix also contains article 4, sec- 
tion 2, of the Constitution of the United States, guaranteeing the Rights of the 
South ; the Law of Congress of 1793, giving Protection to the Slave Property of 
the South ; the Law of Pennsylvania in effect nullifying that Law of Congress, 
and in open violation of the spirit of the Constitution; the Wilmot Proviso, with 



8 APPENDIX. 

the Resolutions of the States of Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, 
Ohio, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Michigan, Massachusetts, and Maine, in fa- 
vor of its provisions; the Resolutions of the Democratic Conventions of Virginia* 
Georgia and Alabama ; and Mr. Calhoun's Resolutions in the Senate. 



Editor Western Continent, 



LETTERS FROM 

GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 



LETTER I 



Dear Sister Mass : 

Read this letter, attentively, patiently, and candidly ; and when you shall 
have read it, place it among your archives, where History may find it, when Aboli- 
tionism, of which you are the mother, and the chief supporter, shall have accom- 
plished its now undisguised purpose. In addressing you, I shall endeavor to observe 
the respect due to an elder sister ; but, at the same time, I must guard you against 
confounding truths which prove you to be entitled to no respect at all, with a breach 
of courtesy! Certainly, after the unsparing and unprovoked abuse which you have 
heaped upon me and my neighboring sisters for many years, I might be pardoned 
for the most bitter recriminations ; but if I were not deterred from them by self-re- 
spect, and the dread that I have of being thought like you in any respect, I should 
certainly forbear them now that I am about to give to the world so much of your 
history as involves my interests, and the points of difference between us ; for if you 
be not invulnerable, this will inflict a wound upon you, deep enough, and painful 
enough, to appease even malignity itself; and I am sure I have not a particle of 
that in my composition. It will irritate you, I know, sister Mass. — what that 
comes from the South does not ? But to this I am indifferent ; not because I delight 
»n provocation, but because it will give you some little apology for w T rath which you 
have enkindled without cause, and cherished without excuse, for many long years. 
Some things that I have to say to you will be equally applicable to your neighbors, 
who have imbibed your principles. To such I have a caution, but no apology to 
offer : the caution is, that they avoid the common fault of proselytes, which is to 
take to themselves an over-share of the disgrace which may attach to their new 
faith, in the belief that this will entitle them to an over-share of its honors. 

When I first settled in this country, as you may remember, I proclaimed to the 
world that I intended to have nothing to do with Slavery ; and I adhered steadfastly 
to my resolution, until it was overpowered by the complaints of my children. 
They compared my situation with my sister's on the other side of the Savannah. 1 
was gaining but a bare subsistence, they said, by the labor of my children, while she 
was growing rich by the labor of slaves. Her sons were sent over to England, to 
receive a liberal education, while mine were kept constantly employed delving for 
bread in my unhealthy lowlands, or nursing silk- worms on my arid barrens. They 
censured my squeamishness in regard to Slavery, and pointed to all the other sisters 
of the family, especially to you and sister Penny, who made great pretensions to 
piety, as entertaining no scruples upon that subject. Indeed, the prevailing opinion 
/of the whole family at that time was, that it was a mercy to the African race to 



JO LETTER FROM 

bring thorn, even as slaves, from the miseries of their own country, to this. Urged 
by these considerations, and many others, and finding myself unsupported by a sin- 
gle member of the family in my opposition to Slavery, I at length yielded a reluctant 
consent to the introduction of slaves into my domain. My consent was no sooner 
obtained than you and mother Britannia filled my ports, my fields, and my houses, 
with these unfortunate beings — Slaves, " kidnapped" at their parents' doors, by 
" man-stealers,"invery truth, carrying your blood and our mother's blood in their 
veins; but not a drop of mine. Man stealers, who are verily complimented by the 
name, as you would readily admit, had you seen them, as I have seen them, coming 
into port with an escort of sharks, and landing their cargoes of naked, starving, sick, 
and dead, and dying human beings, from the most infernal fetid pits that man ever 
lived in or ever died in. I have often seen my children weep over these wretched 
victims of Yankee avarice, while yours drove their trades, with all that same self- 
sufficiency, pertness, humor and disgusting suppleness, which marks the character 
of your Pedlars at the present day. I have known these miserable wretches, when 
just from the hands of the Britton and the Yankee, to dispute with the vultures for 
the half devoured carcass that lay by the highway, and with difficulty restrained 
from feeding upon the loathsome mass of putrescence. Indeed the first care of the 
purchaser from the slave-ship used to be, to prevent them from killing themselves by 
surfeit. For the part which my sons took in these shocking scenes, God may, for 
aught I know, have judgments in reserve for me ; but I cannot believe that he will 
ever use you as the instrument for executing them. That my children, in pur- 
chasing slaves from yours, delivered them from the most cruel bondage that man 
ever groaned under, is most true — that there was pity and compassion on the side of 
the purchasers, and none on the side of the venders, is equally true ; hut for these 
things I give them no credit, because selfishness and not humanity urged them to 
the traffic. But if they be guilty, they who never owned a slave ship or sailed on 
board of one — they who never enslaved a freeman — they to whom the slave rushed 
with joy from the cruelties of your sons — they who would not look into the floating 
dungeons, from which your boys daily drew their famished dead, for many long 
weeks — in mercy's name, where do you stand? Of all the sisterhood, you should 
be the first to sympathize with me and the last to upbraid me. But you are the file- 
leader in this modern crusade upon Southern rights ; and the end of it will be just 
what might be expected from such a leader in such a cause — trouble to us both, but 
a thousand times more trouble to you than to me. Laugh at the prediction if you 
please — but bear it in mind, the result of your movements ivill he more disastrous 
to you and your allies, than to me and mine. Why, I thus judge, will be dis- 
closed in the sequel, when I shall return to this subject. As a proper introduction 
to it, let us pursue your history in order. 

You and mother Brit, having "put the price of human flesh in your pockets," 
went ofT glorying in your profits — leaving me to manage this flesh as I could. In 
process of time, the Old Lady grew weary of making money by the slow process 
of traffic with her daughters ; and she determined to get it in a more summary 
way — by virtue of her authority. Accordingly she issued her orders that we should 
all be taxed. This was a direct approach to the seat of 'your sensibilities, and of 
course you became desperate. You called upon us all to unite with you in resist- 
ing her exactions. The other sisters responded promptly to the call ; but what was 
* to do ? I was very young, and very weak. Father Oglethorpe had with 
"/fficulty saved my life from the Spanish sword. My mother had for a long time, 
as I have intimated, kept me poor, by confining me to the silk business, instead of 
letting me choose my own occupation. I was surrounded by Indian tribes, numer- 
ous and warlike. Your importations of " flesh and blood" had by this time in- 
creased upon me to rather an alarming extent — and of course 1 was in no situation 
to throw off parental authority and meet the inevitable consequences. Withal, I 
was just beginning to gain health and strength. My affairs were intrusted to the 
supervision of James Wright, a most amiable, excellent, prudent man, who 
left me no ground of complaint. As for the tax, it did not hurt me : for the plain 



GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 11 

reason that I had little or nothing to be taxed. As for tea, not one in a hundred of 
my children ever used it; and most of them, I believe, had never seen it. To es- 
pouse your cause under these circumstances, was, it seemed to me, to sacrifice 
everything' and to gain nothing'. And yet to stand by and see you flogged into 
submission, to unrighteous exactions, was abhorrent to every principle of my na- 
ture. I did what j r ou never do — I sacrificed interest to principle and juined you — 
I sa}' I joined you : for you were the only one of the family who had come to blows 
with our mother. The rest of us were foolishly hoping for a compromise ; but you 
took the better course. Convinced of the justness of your cause, you resisted op- 
pression at its first approach ; and you did well, as the event clearly proved. In 
cases of doubtful right, compromises are excellent things ; but where there is flagrant 
injustice, cruelty and extortion on the one hand, and clear right on the other, a com- 
promise is no better than a reward to iniquity for its daring, and a promise to double 
the premium at short payment, when it becomes doubly villainous. He is a fool, or 
a suicide, or both, who tries to appease the bloodhound by giving him a lap of his 
blood ; and man bereft of every moral sense, is but a bloodhound with human saga- 
city. You did right, therefore, sister Mass, in resisting oppression in limine, though 
it seemed a desperate adventure at the time. My support of you, ruined me for a 
time. 

We conquered, and having severed the connexion with our unnatural parent, we 
were now all, by common consent, at liberty to manage our own affairs in our own 
way. Not one of the sisters dreamed that she had any right to intermeddle with the 
domestic concerns of another. Withal, these were days of decency and courtesy, 
which protected each from the intrusions of another. That such was the general 
understanding at that time, was proved beyond question by the fact, that when the 
social compact was formed, two of the sisters refused for a time to unite in it ; and 
during this time they were considered by all as entirely independent of the rest. 
This was " the Government of the People,'" as we learn from high judicial au- 
thority, which three millions could not enforce upon four hundred and sixty thou- 
sand, and which eleven communities could not enforce upon two! I beg you to 
remember these things for future uses. Absolved from maternal authority, we agreed 
to band together for the common defence and general welfare. To this end we 
drew up articles of confederation, in which we confided to deputies chosen by us all, 
the management of our foreign relations, and such matters as were of general inter- 
est ; while we reserved to ourselves individually the entire management of our 
local concerns. It was in settling these articles that you and I divided for the first 
time ; and as we have never agreed since, I beg leave to submit to the judgment of 
the world the points of difference between us, with the course of us both in our 
opposition. You were for clothing the Deputies with powers to force us to a per- 
petual union, and to revise, if not to direct, all our household movements. You 
supposed there would be a perpetual tendency in the sisterhood to fly from each 
other, and you would have made the Deputies " lohippcrs in" to us. Indeed, I 
think I would hazard nothing in saying, that you would gladly have adopted the 
Old Lady's system of government which we had just thrown off. Nor have I a 
scruple of blame to attach to you on this account. They were strange views, to be 
sure, under the circumstances, and in point of consistency, in perfect keeping with 
your views ever since ; but then they were sincere, and therefore they received 
from me the most liberal indulgence — an indulgence whicn I would gladly have 
repeated, had you afforded me an opportunity like favorable, within the last fifty 
years. 

On the other hand, I believed that the ties of friendship, kindred, and common 
interest would keep us together in love and harmony, without the aid of a driver's 
thong — our children intermingling and intermarrying, I could not conceive how we 
were ever to fall out. Nor could I see, nor can I yet see, the propriety of keeping 
any sister in the family, who might wish to leave it. My dread was of the Depu- 
ties. Power I knew to be self-sustaining and self-increasing. All history had 
proved this. My plan, therefore, was to clothe the Deputies with just power 



12 LETTER FROM 

enough to discharge the trust confided to them, and no more. My plan prevailed ; 
and one would suppose — or rather, one would have supposed, that you possessed 
modesty enough to await the decisions of experience, upon the questions of differ- 
ences between you, and a large majority of the family. Not you, however. 
That your judgment was not considered authoritative, seems to have been considered 
an ample apology to yourself, at least, for laying aside all modesty, all courtesy, all 
decency, and all consistency, when you stept into the confederacy. As you could 
not have the articles cut to your pattern, you determined to stretch them to it ; 
and accordingly you have been for sixty years, engaged in the singular employ- 
ment of fitting your rejected suit to the Deputies, and then abusing them most un- 
mercifully, f -r wearing it — or to speak without a figure — you have ever been labor- 
ing to increase the powers of the Deputies, by construction ; and yet ever complain- 
ing, most bitterly, of their abuse of power. Counting out Washingtok's admin- 
istration, about which there is a sanctity, which none of us dare invade, you have 
quarrelled with every other save one ; and that one every body else quarrelled 
with. It was but recently your son John cried out, " we have been under slave 
domination for forty years:" and yet, you are as ripe for increasing that power as 
ever you were. And here lies the secret of your desperate abolition efforts. That 
you have not half the sympathy for the slave that I have, I will prove to the satis- 
faction of every unprejudiced mind. I could excuse your zeal in behalf of freedom, 
if yon had wit enough to conceal its true object. But so palpably does selfishness — a 
yearning for the loaves and fishes, evince itself, in all your mock philanthrophy, 
that to credit you for the virtue which you feign, would be to discredit myself for 
common sense. But let me not anticipate. 

The confederation established, we all got along pretty well. Your children came 
in great numbers to my domain, and I received them kindly. I did not like their 
ways in all respects— they were too forward, too tricky, and too covetous ; but as 
these w^re hereditary faults, that I knew would soon wear away in this latitude, 
and as they possessed some redeeming virtues, I gave them a hearty welcome. They 
tarried with me, married into my family, and raised a numerous progeny, who now 
carry in their veins the blood of us both. Let me impress this fact upon your 
memory, as it has an important connection with what I have yet to say. 

We had not long set up for ourselves, before the war between France and Eng- 
land commenced. The blood of the first had hardly dried up from your fields, and 
the stripes of the last had hardly cured up on your back, and yet you took sides with 
the latter. This you did before you could plead the horrors of the Revolution as an 
apolugy for your unnatural preference. Indeed those horrors were the results of mis- 
directed zeal in a really good cause ; like your burning down Catholic Churches to 
advance the cause of Religion. France was your ally, England was your enemy. 
The first, struggled for the people ; the last struggled fir kings. The one, lighted 
the torch of freedom at your own altars; the other, at the°same altars, mingled 
your blood with your sacrifices. The one w^as a reformer ; the other was an inter- 
meddler. And yet you took sides with the latter ! I could not follow you, and 
here we split again. In that contest both trampled upon our rights, but it was for the 
last to seize our children and make them lift the sword against their benefactors. Our 
children, did I say ! Not ours, but yours. Not one did I lose by this daring as- 
sumption ; but you lost many. For this and many other insults and wrongs', we 
declared war against Britain. And where were you now? There were your own 
sons really " bondsmen" in the hands of "man-srealers ;" and there was your prop- 
erty confiscated by their "masters." You, of course, warmly espoused the Avar 
which was declared to punish these outrages ; did you not ? Not you : you opposed 
it, you denounced it, and you interposed every barrier to its success that you possibly 
could. With one eye upon Bunker's Hill, and the other upon Yorktown, you lauded 
Gf.orge the Third, and calumniated Madison; and when you found that all your 
efforts to arrest^ the war proved abortive, you sent one portion of your child ren to plot 
a dissolution of the Union, and another to your waterfalls to supplant your beloved 
friend in manufactures. 



GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 13 

The war ended, we next find you making your conges to that much abused govern- 
ment, and humbly soliciting a little protection for those generous sons of yours, who 
had magnanimously stept forward, in the time of distress, to supply the country with 
clothing. You told us that if the government which yuu hail so kindly befriended^ 
would only fling its protecting arms about them for a few years, you would release it 
from further obligation, throw yourself, like other people, upon your own resources 
and make a wonderful return for the boon extended to them. It was oranted • and 
surely, after what had transpired, if you could stoop to ask it, they who granted it 
may be excused on the score of heroism, if not of justice and policy. The favor 
granted, you returned to your abuse — the sow that was washed, to her wallomng in 
the mire. 

The time expired, you again appeared before the Deputies, not to verify your former 
promises, but to ask for a little increase of protection. This time you told many in- 
consistent stories; but as they were matters of course, little was thought of them • 
and you were again favored. In a few years you were back again, supported by sister 
Conny and sister Rhody, who had got a sip of the pap upon which you fattened so 
lustily, and who had become as ravenous of it as yourself. Here was now exhibited 
to the world a sublime moral spectacle — the Hartford Convention assembled at the 
City of Washington — not "to take measures to protect their citizens from forcible 
draughts, conscriptions, and impressments," (so ourmilitary requisitions were called,) 
but modestly to request the American family to tax themselves for the third time with 
increased severity, in order that this darling Triplet might do a money-making busi- 
ness. 

But I must conclude this long letter. I thought, when I commenced it, that it 
would, within less space, contain all that I had to say; but I find that it will not ; 
and to do you and myself justice, I must address you again. In the mean time, let 
me say to your children who have opposed your strange and wayward course, that so 
far from attaching blame to them, I look upon them as among the noblest, if not 
the very noblest spirits of the land. To stick to their country and to principle, 
amidst the influences which surround them, argues a moral character and a mural 
firmness, which deserves the highest praise, and, of course^ a better parentage. 
Your injured sister, 

GEORGIA. 



LETTER II.* 



Dear Sister Mass : 

You may remember that I left you, with your colleagues of the Hartford 
Convention, paying your third visit to 'Washington, in quest of protection. About 
this time the sisters of the South began to become impatient of your importunities, 
and to protest sternly against any further concessions to them; but you had now en- 
listed so many in your favor, that you were gratified once more. Still in the prose- 
cution of your suit, you preserved the semblance of modesty at least; though your 
spirit manifestly rose with your strength. It was not long before you we're back- 
again upon the same errand, with a strength that was irresistible. And now ensued 
a scene, which for the honor of my connexions, I blush to record. Your children 
thronged the Council-chamber, with an effrontery, which in mine, would cover me 
with shame, and demanded the old dish, according to their own recipes. Every 

* As the letters which we have already received from Georgia contain some things 
which Mr. Calhoun has said in substance, it may be well to remark that all of them 
were written before Mr. C. made his speech on the " Three Million Bill." 



V.\ 



!4 LETTER FROM 

ingredient was weighed and measured by their own standards, and handed over to 
the Deputies to be cooked under their own directions. There was not a morsel of 
the compound suited to the Southern taste, save a few grains of sugar thrown in, to 
conciliate sister Louisa. Your son John (Q,) was selected to preside over the 
mingling and simmering process, and your son Dan, was " to do it up brown" with 
trarnishments to his own taste. John, who is really a good man at heart — wonder- 
fully good, considering his origin and calling — commenced his work ; but before he 
had completed it, the better feelings of his nature repeatedly prevailed over his 
servility, and he was several times in the very act. of putting in an element or two, 
to make it palatable, or at least, less offensive to the South, when the purveyors 
pounced down upon him like harpies, and compelled him to plumb the line of their 
prescriptions ! It was passed through the furnace and finished to order. 

Such scenes in the very temple of liberty, shocked and incensed the whole Sister- 
hood of the South, and they talked boldly of seeking relief from this miscalled pro- 
tection, by self-protection. At first, you tried to convert them to your faith, as you 
do the heathen, by a liberal distribution of tracts among them, in which you set 
furth the blessings of the tariff with peculiar force and ingenuity. But finding them 
incorrigible, you told them plainly, that the slave labor of the South should not 
come in competition with the free labor of the North ; and you gave them to under- 
stand, that if argument could not reduce them to order, Northern muskets would. 
My neighboring Sister Caroline, in the meantime, began to assume an alarming 
attitude, and civil war or the fall of the tariff seemed the only alternative. This 
state of things found you at your old employment of abusing the government, but 
most of all, Andrew Jackson, who was then at the head of our affairs. Of all 
men in the country, this was the man against whom you had lifted up the warning 
voice loudest, and upon whom you had poured out your bitterest anathemas. As 
the clouds gathered and darkened over our political hemisphere, you threw your- 
self into this man's arms. If he smiled, you tittered — if he bent, you bowed — if 
he threatened, you bristled — and so fast, and all-confiding grew your friendships, in 
the course of a few weeks, that you moved to clothe him with almost despotic power, 
in order to meet the emergency. I say that you moved ; for your son Dan does no- 
thing without your orders, expressed or implied. The cannons were loaded, the 
matches were lighted, and nothing was wanted, but the word c '^re," to deluge the 
country with blood, when, by the interposition of Mr. Clay, a compromise was 
effected. I now flattered myself that this ever-inflaming subject was put to rest ; 
and certainly it ought to have been ; for conceding the benefits of a protective tariff, 
it is but a matter of policy at last, and no demands of policy will justify a breach of 
faith. But this is not your ethics, Sister Mass, and it is with you alone that I have 
to do upon this occasion ; though, as I said before, I shall not cover your faults, from 
courtesy to others who share them with you. The compromise was hardly effected 
before you began to throw out hints, (Irish hints) that you did not mean to abide by 
it. Who that knew you, supposed you would? I did not dream of it, though I 
hoped that others, more trust- worthy, would not permit you to violate it. So far 
as I have been enabled to discover, you have never considered it as involving any 
higher moral obligation, than the concluding acknowledgements of a friendly epistle: 
— " your most obedient, humble servant." Having brought you to this compro- 
mise, which I had mainly in view in giving the history of the tariff, and in reach- 
ing which, I followed the order of events directly connected with it, regardless of 
the order of time, let me now take up the history of some other compromises to 
which you were a party. 

While the articles of our confederation (which for the sake of brevity, we will 
hereafter call the Constitution,) were under discussion, a very knotty question arose, 
which had like to have defeated the Union. Considering the views of the parties 
at that time, it was a very curious one. You of the North considered slaves as 
mere chattels, and, therefore, not to be represented in the Common Councils. We 
of the South, admitted the fact, but drew an opposite conclusion from it, upon the 
ground that taxation and representation should be proportioned to each other. The 



GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 15 

matter was compromised, and from that day to this you have been racking your in- 
vention to get rid of the compromise. Your Hartford Convention drew up a series 
of resolutions, which you adopted and remitted to the Sisters, as proposed amend- 
ments to the Constitution, among which was one to exclude slave representation. 
For the honor of the country, not a member of the confederacy, who was not at the 
concocting of these resolutions, adopted a single one of them. What you could not 
accomplish by direct means, you resolved to accomplish by indirect and less honora- 
ble means. They are plainly visible, and are as follows : — The first is, to leave 
the obnoxious clause untouched, but to stifle it by stretching other clauses over it. 
The second is, to crowd the master and the slave within such a narrow compass, 
that they cannot both live in it. The third (which is subservient to this,) is, to 
receive no new member into the Union, but upon the condition of her repudiating 
slavery. The fourth (which is of like character.) is, to stop all egress of slaves 
from their present limits ; hence the refusal of yourself and your confederates to 
receive them when emancipated by their masters ; and hence your opposition to the 
Colonization Society. These are startling designs, Sister, to be conceived against 
those who spent their blood and treasure in defence of the liberty which you enjoy ; 
but I shall not furnish yon with a pretext for them by " blustering" over them, as 
I confess with shame, my children are too much in the habit of doing. And here 
I will disclose a family secret, which may be of service to you, not long hence, and 
which some of the members of some of the churches in your neighborhood may be 
able to avouch. It is this : So long as we bluster, you have not much to fear ; but 
when you see our children looking calmly, with compressed lip and reddened cheek, 
at your encroachments, be assured there are perilous times at hand for all of us. 
And when once they gather for the flight, let them go — you never can conciliate 
them afterwards. We are idolaters of the Union, and will bear much before we 
o-ive it up ; but only convince us that it is a golden calf which the profane grow rich 
by mutilating, and the devout grow lean by worshiping, and we will crush it to 
atoms, and grind it to powder with as little remorse as did Moses, the calf of old. 

In pursuance of the plans just suggested, you opposed the admission of Missouri 
into the Union, except upon the condition of her renouncing slavery. Here was an 
unblushing infraction of the compromise you made when the Constitution was 
framed, and a direct violation of the spirit of that instrument, in all its provisions. 
A storm of course was raised, which was settled as usual by a compromise. So 
lone* have you been in the habit of breaking compromises, and so utterly indifferent 
to them have you become, that you cannot now wait for a suitable opportunity to 
break them ; and you are at this moment engaged in breaking this last, by anticipa- 
tion. In the last war, you withheld your troops from the service of the country, 
and afterwards demanded pay from the government to the amount of more than a 
million of money, for their services in marching and counter-marching about in your 
own territory. In this war, you lay hold of the purse-strings of the nation, and 
vow you will never let go until you get a pledge from the whole family, that if we 
are not driven or starved out of Mexico, and if we should make a treaty with her, 
and if by the terms of that treaty she should stipulate to pay the expenses of the 
war, and her old debt, and if she should pay it in land, and if that land should be- 
come settled, and become populous enough to be admitted into the Union, and claim 
to be admitted, without of its own choice objuring slavery — it shall not be received 
into the Union. 

This makes your conduct in the first war resplendently virtuous ; but that any 
other Sister in the Union, without the case-hardening through which you have gone, 
should, at a single leap, reach the platform on which you stand, and ever raise her 
head afterwards, is, to me, inexpressibly amazing. In looking down to the far-off po- 
sition which you occupy, I feel that you are entitled to some credit for your ingenu- 
ity and enterprise in getting there ; but as to your companions, they seem to me to 
have taken your character, only to add to it a new blemish — namely, rashness. 
The determination which you have formed to allow no more slave territory' to come 
into the Union, apart from the principle involved in it, is, of all movements of abo- 



16 LETTER FROM 

litionism, to me the most inoffensive. It seems to have thrown the Southern Sisters 
into a panic, and to have reconciled many of their children to a most disgraceful re- 
treat from the war in which we are engaged. " Suppose," cry they, " we should 
take all Mexico, don't you see plainly that it never can be admitted into the Union 
as slave territory ?" What is the plain and obvious answer to all this? Why let 
it stay out of the Union, by abolition votes, and let it remain common property as 
long as they choose so to vote. The controversy will be between the applicant and 
the abolitionist, and we will stand on the side of the former. She will renounce 
slavery or she will not. If she renounce slavery, there will be no difficulty in the 
matter ; if she will not renounce slavery she remains a territory, to which all will 
have free access. As to the propriety or impropriety of the war itself, I have no- 
thing to say, but to push its conquests just to the limits which the abolitionists pre- 
scribe, and thejre stop, without treaty, without peace, without object — because, for- 
sooth, if we advance farther we may conquer territory, which may give rise to un- 
pleasant difficulties — is to surrender in advance more than we could lose by the 
threatened contest — to anticipate a breach of faith by removing at our expense the 
inducement to it, and to throw the honor of the nation and the army into the bar- 
gain. If we do not conquer Mexico, will her territory ever become a part of the 
Union? 

Your abolition petitions, and your missions to Charleston and Orleans to stir up 
law suits about your black citizens, are part and parcel of the plans already exposed. 

While you have been rushing on in your mad career, you have been unsparing in 
your abuse of me and my neighboring Sisters. I cannot call to mind that you ever 
breathed one kind sentiment, uttered one kind word, turned one kind look towards 
us. To Virginia, your elder Sister, and your great benefactor, you have been signally 
abusive and vindictive, because, to the sin of slavery, she has added the still greater 
sin, in your estimation, of exerting more influence in the councils of the nation, and 
producing more Presidents than any other member of the family. But " man-steal- 
ers," " kidnappers," " traders in blood," "tyrants," "murderers," are the common 
appellations by which we are introduced to the world by the devout, meek, gentle, 
lamb-like sons of the " Pilgrim Fathers." Engrave them, if you please, Sister, on 
Plymouth Rock, in this form : 

MASSACHUSETTS, 

IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF THE SERVICES RENDERED TO HER, 

BY HER BELOVED SISTERS: 

Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, 

In Rescuing her from the Cruelties 

OF AN UNNATURAL MOTHER, 

Records upon this Consecrated Rock, 

The distinguishing Virtues of these Affectionate Sisters : 

Maryland — The Man-Stealer. 

Virginia — The Kidnapper. 

North Carolina — The Trader in Blood. 

South Carolina — The Tyrant. 

Georgia — The Murderer. 

And now what have we done, Sister, to merit this unkind treatment ? What 
would you have us do, to save ourselves from further injury and insult, and you, 
from further self-abasement ? There is but one answer to these questions, namely ; 
" You own slaves and you refuse to emancipate them." Well, let us discuss the 
matter calmly. I confess it will cost me a struggle to do it, for reasons apparent 
through )four whole history; but I think, for the country's sake, I can forget who you 
are and what you are long enough to discuss the subject with you not only calmly, 
but fairly. 



GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 17 

J own slaves, and I sin in so doing. Su ppose that this is all true ; now what must 
I do? " Why, emancipate them of course.'" Well, let us see the end of this course. 

I own two hundred and eighty-one thousand slaves.* Of these, eighty-seven 
thousand five hundred are under ten years of age; two hundred, over a hundred 
years of age; and ten thousand, hetween fifty-five and a hundred. I set these two 
hundred and eighty-one thousand human beings free — I proclaim liberty to these old 
and decrepid, these young and helpless. Among them are many sick, lame, blind, 
deaf and dumb. I set them adrift upon the world, houseless, breadless, penni- 
less. Before the God who made you, Sister Mass, do you think this would be 
right ? A month's time would bury nineteen-twentieths of them. " But you 
should send them away." Well, I turn to my benevolent Sisters, who are moving 
heaven and earth to abolish slavery, and not one of them will receive them. Oh ! 
think of the Randolph negroes, and try to think how I feel, at the abolition cry from 
Ohio. " But send them to Africa." True ; I have no ships of my own, and I 
apply to you, the greatest ship-owner in the Union, to transport them for me. And 
you exclaim : — " Be off! I am the most mortal enemy to Colonization on the 
Globe, and not a finger will I raise to promote it." " Bid keep them yourself, and 
furnish them with the means of living. ," Exactly! For how long, Sister? Not 
more than a year, I suppose. As they could not embark in the learned professions, 
I must furnish them with an outfit for agriculture. You would not think a half 
pound of meat a day, and a peck of corn a week, an over allowance for each, 
would you ? Calculate the amount, if you please, Sister. But those capable of la- 
bor must have at least ten acres of land apiece, I suppose. Of these there are one 
hundred and forty thousand. We must give them, therefore, one million four hun- 
dred thousand acres. But they must have horses, ploughs, hoes, axes, &c, or the 
land will be of no avail to them ; — and they must be clothed for a year, besides. I 
intended to have calculated the amount in money of all these things ; but this 
would consume unnecessary time. You can do it ; and you will see, that to furnish 
these means my own children must be beggared. All this proceeds upon the sup- 
position, you perceive, that when I free the slaves, I am bound to provide these 
freemen with a living. Upon this head I have my doubts ; but that the care of 
them, in this way, would dissolve all my social relations, break up my commerce, 
my schools, my colleges, my churches — in short, restore me to a state of nature, I 
have no doubt. Nor, if the clamorous Sisters of the abolition faith would receive 
them, could I endure the trouble and expense, of transporting them — nor could I 
possibly send them abroad, if I would. Now, when these things are spread out 
before you, and you shut your eyes to them, and still persist in your machinations 
and railing against me, to what conclusion must the most unbounded charity be 
driven ? We will reach it anon. 

Another long letter is written, and yet I have not concluded what I have to say ! 
Bear with me, Sister. I have permitted the account between us to run on for a 
long time, without a settlement ; and, as is usual in such cases, it requires a longer 
time to settle than either of us supposed. 

Your persecuted Sister, 

GEORGIA. 

* I here follow the census of 1840, for the sake of the relative ages. The number 
is now over 300,000. 



18 LETTER FROM 



LETTER III. 

Dear Sister Mass : 

In my last, I plainly showed you, how utterly impossible it was forme to 
emancipate my slaves. Why, then, am I denounced and vilified by any one for 
not doing it ? But why are you among the number who thus treat me? Does it 
become the Mother of Slavery to revile the Heir of Slavery? Every non-slave- 
holding Sister should sympathise — deeply sympathize — with me, seeing that none 
of my children now living had anything to do with it in its inception. You all 
agree that it is a great evil — the direst curse that can befall a nation- — how, then, 
should you all act to an innocent Sister, or, at least, to the innocent children of an 
erring Sister, who is under the curse? Imbitter it by harsh words and unkind treat- 
ment ? — cut off her rights? — withdraw from her society ? Will this mitigate its 
sorrows? Will this remove it? Why, Sister, am I, who am only your acces- 
sory in guilt, and who became thus far implicated only under the sorest temptation 
— why am I treated with less civility by you than the Turk, the Algerine, or the 
Russian ? I hear of no efforts made by you to emancipate the slaves of these peo- 
ple, nor have I ever heard you speak harshly of them upon this score. This seems 
to be adding cruelty — unnatural, ungrateful, wanton cruelty — to your usual in- 
consistency. 

Let us, in the next place, examine your system of warfare against Slavery. I 
omit your town- meetings, and the agencies used in them, because they are all with- 
in your legitimate prerogative ; they are good schools for declamation, and excellent 
things for abolishing the distinctions of sex and color, while they are very harm- 
less to me. Your first plan i9 to disregard all compromises entered into upon this 
subject, and to twist the Constitution out of joint as a part of this plan. Believe me, 
Sister, a project thus begun, never can succeed. How shall I address to you the rea- 
sons for this opinion without seeming to calumniate you ? For myself f I look upon a 
compromise, entered into for the peace of the country, as involving a sanctity which 
is exceeded only by that which attaches to the communion and matrimonial vow. I 
should instinctively recoil from the wretch who would ask me to violate it. I think 
I might defy you to produce a case in which a clear breach of faith has ever been 
productive of ultimate good to the party guilty of it. On the other hand, I could 
produce hundreds, in which this conduct has been followed by the utter ruin of the 
perfidious party. When a cabinet council was held in France, in order to deliberate 
upon the propriety of violating a treaty, the treaty was read to the members in 
turn ; all gave their opinions to the King, in which they unfolded the great advanta- 
ges that he would derive from violating it. After hearing them all through, the Duke 
of Burgundy closed the conference by saying : " Gentlemen, there is the Treaty !" 
You must admire this sentiment, Sister, keen as is its reproof to you, unless, for- 
sooth, you have worked in kitchens so long that you have lost your relish for the 
moral sublime. 

But what shall we say to a deliberate infraction of a treaty made to bind together 
in peace and harmony, the several members of one great family ! Surely, it is more 
sacred than a treaty between distinct nations. Now, add to it tihe sanction of an 
oath, which every member of the family who is called to the management of its 
local or general concerns, is obliged to take ; and then measure the extent of its ob- 
ligation if you can. To pervert its meaning, is to violate it in the worst of all ways. 
To keep within the letter and to violate its spirit, is to cover perfidy with meanness. 

You ask me indignantly whether I charge you with this vile conduct ? Why 

no : not yet, at least. I am only speaking of your clearly revealed plans, and it is 
possible that you may repent of them before you carry them into execution — or, 
which is more probable, you may be prevented from executing them. 



GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 19 

Your next device is to contract the area of Slavery in the country. Ingenious as 
you are, Sister, especially in the pursuit of money, if millions were staked on it, 
you could find but one object in this project, and it is this : to confine mas ers and 
servants to such a narrow territory, that in a little time they both cannot live on it. 
Thus far I can follow you ; but what you hope fur, when this point is reached, God 
only knows. At that point the whites must yield their territory to the blacks, and 
move away ; or the whites must put the blacks, or the blacks must put the whites, 
to the sword. There is no other alternative ; for, as you have seen, we could not 
remove them now — much less able will we be to do so then. Now, which of these 
issues do you yearn for, Sister? When I find all your sympathies on the side of the 
blacks — when I see them admitted to your pulpits and communion tables, and the 
whites excluded — when I witness your exasperation at the whites, and hear your 
ever streaming abuse of them, I am constrained to brlieve that you prefer the third 
alternative — that the blacks cut the throats of the whites. But when I hear you 
avowing that slave labor shall not come in competition with free labor — that no ter- 
ritory shall be added to the country, into which the free born sons of the North will 
have to commingle wiih the slaves of the South — with much more, which implies 
that the blacks, in your estimation, are a degraded race, not to be put on a level with 
whites — I am led to infer that when the throat-cut' ing tragedy conies off, you hope 
to see the whites the victors. Whatever you may desire, this will certainly be 
the end of that drama ; and if you really sympathize with the slaves, you could not 
pursue a worse policy than to contract the area upon which the two races are to 
live, until want drives them to war. As to our giving the slaves our possessions, 
and moving: to the free States, that, of course, will not be done ; and if it were done, 
they would soon all perish. The only rational conclusion that I can draw from your 
conduct in this regard, is that you care for neither master nor slave, and that the 
true aim of this circumscribing policy is to weaken the power of slaveholders in the 
councils of the nation. 

This conclusion is strengthened by many considerations : — your many complaints 
of that power — your attempts to reduce it during the last war — your opposition to 
the Colonization Society — your refusal to give a dollar to free the slave from bond- 
age — your contempt of him when put in comparison with Northern freemen — the 
little encouragement you give him to come to your land — the coldness with which 
you treat the black who does go there — and the few privileges you allow him when 
he gets there. To reconcile such conduct, with either respect for the master or hu- 
manity to the slave, is beyond my ingenuity. And yet to suppose any being capa- 
ble of such utter abandonment, as this conclusion would imply, for the paltry purpose 
of gaining a little brief authority, is to suppose that Vice has yeaned anew, and 
brough' furth a monster that startles even Vice herself. I pray you, Sister, have 
mercy upon your reputation for justice, truth or sanity. Do not so speak, and so act 
as to bring them all in qupstion ; or to make them bring each other in question. If 
you really would emancipate ihe slave, without affecting the master, extend the area 
of slavery as widely as possible. Remember, if you please, (what I should be 
ashamed to confess my ignorance of.) that to extend the area of slavery, is not to in- 
crease the number of slaves. If is not to increase their burdens. Just the reverse. 
By as much as you widen the field of slavery, by so much do you increase the pro- 
portion of whites to blacks within its limits. By as much as this proportion is in- 
creased, by so much isthe divisor of ownership increased, and the fewer must be the 
number which each white man will own. The fewer that each owns, the better will 
he treat them — the more certainly will he instruct them, and the more ready will he 
be to emancipate ihem. 1st, because he will have a warmer regard for them, from 
his closer intimacy with them, and 2d, because he can do it at a less sacrifice. Sure- 
ly, there is no refinement or subtlety in this reasoning. Every body knows that the 
man who owns but three slaves, treats them better than does the man who owns fifty 
or a hundred. And if the whole number could be divided in the proportion of thrpe 
tonne, every man in the country would liberate his slaves, and give them a start in the, 
world, the moment that he could supply their places with white servants. For veri- 



20 LETTER FROM 

ly, Sister, most of my children are just as sick of them as you are of their masters, 
and their masters are of you. But the proportion must in a short time become even 
less than this. If no man in the country had more than one slave, slavery must be 
soon abolished} and while the whiles increase faster than the slaves, the tendency, 
under the common statutes of distributions, must ever be to this state of things. As 
to the cry that your free born sons will not mingle with slaves, it is like most of 
your cries — opposed to the evidence of your senses. They do mingle with them ; 
and it is against them, your own blood, as well as mine, that you are pouring out the 
vials of your wrath, and meditating destruction. So much for your aims and the 
tendency of them. Let us now look to the fruits of them, so far as they have been 
gathered. 

First, — You have paralized the Colonization Society ; an Institution which united 
North and South, in the laudable enterprise of abolishing slavery without periling 
freedom, of blessing the black man without cursing the white, of seperating master 
and servant by a power which drew their hearts together as it drew their bodies asun- 
der, and of changing the civil relations of the country, without violence to the consti- 
tution, or intrusion on either side. I have asked myself, why did God permit an Insti- 
tution which promised so much good, to be the first victim of a fell spirit which threat • 
ened so much evil ? Am I to take it as an indication of his favor, to these self- 
infurated fanatics? And I have found consolation, if not truth in the answer : that 
on this wise has he often permitted his own most benevolent designs to be met by 
the worms for whose benefit they were intended. Even our holy religion began 
with the crucifixion of its great Head, and the martyrdom of his disciples. He was 
of the seed of Abraham ? And who was Abraham ? — Be not alarmed Sister, I am 
not going to speak of his household, but his progeny — Who was Abraham ? The 
man to whom the second promise of the Messiah was made ; the father of the peo- 
ple to whom the Old Testament dispensation was committed. But how strange its- 
beginning ! Its dawn found that very people in the most abject slavery that ever 
afflicted man — at least, so I understand the Scriptures. A slavery foreordained by 
God himself, and continued for centuries. A strange precursor of the light which 
these people were to spread through the world! From these things, and others to 
which I might advert, I infer that the shock which the Colonization Society has 
received, is no proof that God does not mean to prosper it yet ; or that he does mean 
to prosper the Vandalism which laid violent hands upon it. May it rise again with 
renewed vigor and strength, and may the good of all latitudes sustain it and defend 
it, as the ark of our political covenant. I am strengthened in the opinion just ad- 
vanced by the fact that. Abolitionism, after nearly thirty years' travail, has not yet 
produced even a mouse. Not a man has it liberated — not a blessing has it pro- 
duced. 

Secondly. — You have severed the Churches, and thus, at one blow, cut the nerves 
of Protestantism, and the slrougest bond of the Union. I speak of the first conse- 
quence, not as a Sectarian, but to a Sectarian, a recruiting sergeant of the Anti- 
Slavery League (I have this moment read the announcement that the Wjl- 

mot proviso has passed the House — of course, I am not in a frame of mind to write 
temperately. Excuse me, until the return of better feelings. There you are. Mass, 

first in the breach of the Constitution.^) Nearly a day has rolled away, and 

I am again prepared to resume my letter. 

You have sundered the Churches, and thereby produced a state of feeling as unpro- 
pitious to the cause of religion, as your political movements have been to the stabili- 
ty of the Union. And here I find great encouragement, in view of the revolution 
which your abolitionism is soon to produce. 

In every instance in which we have dissolved our association with you, our peace 
and happiness have been greatly promoted. Can you say as much, Sister? 

Thirdly. — You have forced yourself almost entirely from the affections of your 
Southern Sisters, and led them to look with a cold, suspicious eye upon all your 
children who come hither. Many who would have received a hearty welcome years 
ago, and have been promptly introduced into a lucrative business, now wander 



GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 21 

about among us, with their pockets full of flattering certificates, seeking employment 
and finding none. Some of these are doubtless of that noble class, of whom I spoke 
at the conclusion of my first letter ; but we do not know them — and your sin descends 
in penalties upon their heeds. But here I forget who I am talking to. You who 
are plotting the ruin of your own offspring, largely mixed with mine, without feel- 
ing or remorse, would rejoice at the discomfiture of those who have ventured to op- 
pose you at your own doors. Would that I could know such ! They should re- 
ceive my highest honors and my warmest affections. 

Fourthly. — You have really rendered yourself contemptible to many of the slaves 
themselves. Of this I could give you some striking proofs. Forty years ago any- 
thing looking to the emancipation of our slaves, was spoken of only in whispers, 
and was printed only in asterisks ; now, we all talk as openly and freely about the 
abolitionists and their aims, as we do of almost any other subject. The truth is, 
they have heard so long, and so much about abolitionism, and seen so little good result 
from it — that they begin to think that you really care nothing for them, or that your 
friendship is not worth having. The soundest philosophy that ever emanated from 
a negro's brain. 

Fifthly. — You have spread your incendiary principles abroad, and with them the 
spirit which you breathed into them, until your proselytes can overleap the barriers 
of the Constitution, with as little scruple as you feel in violating common promises. 
You smile at their proficiency, not perceiving that you are breaking down the only 
safeguard which you have from the fast growing power of the West, and establish- 
ing precedents which will come in vengeanee upon you at no distant day. Not per- 
ceiving that you are puttingthe scourge, of which you have been complaining for forty 
years, into hands from which you never can wrest it again. Believe me, Sis, it 
will not be long before you will want the help of the much abused South, against 
whom you have been practicing your political witchcraft and diabolical incantations 
with so much success. You admit, do you, the power of Congress to say what 
must be the character of the people, and what their private relations, and what con- 
ditions they must have in their Constitution, before they can be admitted into the 
Union. Very well. For the poor consolation of being thought, by and by, wiser 
than my very shrewd and self conceited Yankee Sister, permit me to enter my sol- 
emn protest agaimt this novel, startling, revolutionary doctrine. By the Shade of 
Hamilton, your Mentor hi politics, and Madison, mine — joint architects of the 
splendid political 'fabric under which we live — I protest against it ! I pronounce it an 
open, flagrant violation of a double obligation — the Missouri Compromise and the 
Constitution. 

What would have been thought of the man, who, when North Carolina con- 
sented to come into the Union, should have proposed to exclude her, on the ground 
of her owning slaves 1 Nothing could have saved him from universal execration, 
but the plain indication in the proposition itself, that the man was deranged. But 
such is abolitionism, which regards no law human or divine. Of all the maladies 
that ever seized on man, it is the most remarkable. It is a disease in which there 
are no stages — no gradations. Its first symptoms are, a dethronement of the reason, 
a deadening of the sympathies, an oblivion of friendships, and abandonment of shame, 
a forgetfulness of vows, an extinction of patriotism, a recklessness of consequences, 
and a rabid fury, which knows neither bounds nor decency. Its victim is no sooner 
seized than he springs up like a galvanized corpse — glares horribly upon his guilt- 
less friends— banishes them from his heart — strikes down his compatriot — raves at 
his Christian brother — snatches the eucharistic elements from his hand — drives him 
from the pulpit — strips him of his official robes — appropriates his contributions — 
spends them for weapons to wound him — rushes to the arms of the negro — then 
screams out " that he is ruled by slaves" — and calls on Anarchy, in the name of Jus- 
tice, to absolve him from their tyranny. Approach him kindly, and he insults you. 
Ask him what you must do for him, and he is mute. Tell him you know not what 
to do, and he gives you the lie direct. Administer to his cravings, and he craves 
fhe more. Deny what he asks, and he usurps it. He seems to believe himself 



22 LETTER FROM 

clothed with the prerogatives of Heaven and earth. He gives new versions of the 
Scriptures, never before heard of, and changes old ones, which have stood undoubted 
for eighteen hundred and three thousand years. He stands at the door of the tem- 
ple, and says who may go in and who may not. He proclaims who are worthy to 
mingle in the congregations of the Saints and who are not. Heanathematises whole 
nations, leagues and hundreds of leagues off, who are quietly pursuing their own 
business and their own devotions. He calls fellowship, favor — courtesy, condescen- 
sion — privileges, concessions ; and with an arrogance, that despotism would blush 
to assume, he proclaims what in Church and State he will tolerate, and what he 
will never allow! He feeds and fattens on what he professes to abhor, and drives 
from his borders what he professes to love. With the eye of the eagle by day, and 
of the owl by night, he pries into kitchens, quarters and shanties, for something to 
snap at ; and when driven hence, he sets up a pitious howl of persecution. He 
shrieks out at slavery, and calls on the Catholic to help him crush it. He shrieks 
out at Popery, and calls on the slave-holder to help him crush it — then hurls a fire- 
brand into the habitation of the one, and the Church of the other. He begs, and 
abuses his government — stretches its power and rebels against it. receives its larg- 
esses, and strikes at its pillars. And, what is not the least remarkable circumstance 
attending this unheard of malady, the world seems to consider the name of it a suffi- 
cient apology for all its extravagances. *' He is an Abolitionist," covers all guilt, 
quiets all fear, excuses all insults, pardons all injuries. At home and abroad, on sea 
and on land, in peace and in war, in trade and in treaties, Abolitionism must receive 
the first courtesies, and then the interests of the nation. 

Such are the fruits of Abolitionism, and such is Abolitionism itself. Its promises 

in my next. In the meantime be it remembered, lhat the coun try owes it to you, as 

it does mainly, the servitude which it was intended to remove. Thus, by your lust, 

you engendered a disease, which, by your quackery, you have turned into a cancer. 

Your outraged Sister, 

GEORGIA. 



LETTER IV 



Dear Sister Mass : 

Having shown yon what abolitionism has produced, I am now to show you 
what it icill produce. It will produce a dissolution of the Union ! This is in- 
evitable, unless God interposs to arrest its progress; for it is manifest that this, ex 
destruction, is the only alternative left to the South. She has tried to arrest its pro- 
gress by threats, (poor expedients,) concessions and compromises ; and they have 
produced no other effect than to embolden aggression. Nearly twenty years ago, one 
of my sons told his brethren in particular, and the sons of the South in general, to 
quit their party wrangling, for a time at least, and to unite in some precautionary 
measures against Abolitionism. He told them to draw a line which they all could 
agree upon, and say to the abolitionists, as with the voice of one man, " the moment 
you reach that limit we leave you for ever." As that, when slavery should 
be abolished in the District of Columbia — or when a certain number of abolitionists 
should get into Congress — or when that body passed the first act in relation to slavery 
— or anything else that would enable the abolitionist to know before hand just how 
far he might go, and the South to move in a body as soon as he overstepped the 
limits. The same person said that abolitionism would inevitably grow, and grow 
rapidly, at the North — that the pious would espouse it from principle, and the 
politician from interest ; and that, as soon as it became general at the North, noth- 
ing could keep it from oppressing the South intolerably, hut the assurance that the 



GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 23 

destruction of the Union would be the consequence. There was but one way of 
giving that assurance, and that was the one proposed. Without this, encroachment 
would follow encroachment, and every one would find us split into parties, one or 
another of which would be forever making apologies for these inroads, and paralyz- 
ing opposition to them. That consequently there would be no concert, no harmony 
ofaction among us — a little blustering, a little fuming, and a little threatening, and 
the ground usurped would be quietly surrendered. In the mean time, our oppres- 
sors would beeome convinced by our conduct that they might advance upon our rights 
with bidder strides. They already calculated largely upon our fears, and they would 
soon calculate more largely upon our distractions ; and thus encouraged, they would go 
on from outrage to outrage, until we could indure no longer, and then, with per- 
haps the purse" the army°and the navy of the nation in their hands, they would 
tell us to submit to their dictation, or the sword, as we pleased. Then they were 
only experimenting upon our fears and love of the Union, (a hellish experiment to 
be sure, for kinsmen to try upon kinsmen,) but soon they would trust to their power ; 
and what was power when exerted to inforce man's notions of the edicts of Heaven, 
■every body knew. He was pronounced a restless alarmist who was endeavoring to 
make political capital out of abolition folly ; but most of his prophecy has already 
become history ; and whether it will nat all become so very soon, depends, so far as 
man can foresee, upon whether there is virtue enough in the country to arrest you 
and your colleagues in your lawless crusade ; and I confess with mortification that 
I have but little hope from this quarter. Your frenzy then, will probably end in the 
dissolution of the Government— " And Madam," you will add, "in your ruin." 
And, Madam, suppose this true— would that afford you any gratification ? I verily 
believe it would ; for unprovoked malignity and persecution are never satisfied, until 
they see their victim at the rack or the stake. 

But let us calmly examine this thing. We shall hardly separate before we shall 
be involved in war. The aggressions which drive off the South will not cease at the 
separation ; they will rather be more flagrant, because wrath will then take the 
place of sophistry, on the strong side, and that wrath will be stimulated by envy at 
the peace and prosperity of the South, and by disappointment of all ynoi expectations 
as to the result of your mischievous projects. War will probably ensue. But it 
will be a war in which the South will be united to a man, and emboldened by the 
thorough conviction that they have been the objects of unrelenting persecution and 
oppression. The North, on the other hand, will be divided. There will be a vast 
difference in paying the expenses of a war out of your own pockets, and paying it 
out of Uncle Sam's, especially when your revenue is to be collected from your own 
foreign commerce. Withal, very many of your people even now see that you are 
decidedly in the wrong ; and many abolitionists, when they see the results of your 
course, will wake from the dream into which your oily tongued politicians have lulled 
them. Voting down slaveholders, and cutting down slaveholders, will be very dif- 
ferent things to them. 

As for you, Sister Mass., you will be the very first to bolt from the war-party. 
You never have supported your country in a war, and you never will : for this plain 
reason, that it always brings your love of money and your love of country in direct 
■conflict ; or, if I mistake "the reason, the fact is enough for my purpose, as I think 
you are now too old to change your habits. With us it will be victory or death 
— with you, it will be only victory or disgrace ; and as by that time victory will 
cost you something, and disgrace nothing, your own good sense would lead you to 
choose the latter. We will be united, then, and you will be divided. We will be 
on the right side and you on the wrong. This, to my mind, settles the issue of the 
war at once. " But you would have the marine, and you would lay hands upon our 
cotton, rice and tobacco.''* Not so fast, Sister. About this time, when your factories 
are shut up, and your " free labor" is in the field, you will be amazed to see how 
die Abolitionism of England cools. She will be exceedingly respectful to you as 
iier old ally in benevolent enterprises; but then she will tell you, that she never 
■thought of abolishing slavery in any other way, than by the moral agencies of reli- 



24 LETTER FROM 

gion and diplomacy ; and that conseif nee never will permit her to engage in a war 
which is not in someway, at least, subservient to these blessed instrumentalities — 
such as keeping people from suicide by opium, and the like. " She will, therefore, 
observe the strictest neutrality between the contending parties, and take great plea- 
sure in conducting their foreign trade for them, until such time as they could resume 
itsdirection themselves with convenience. And here she would be governed by the 
strictest rules of impartiality. If she carried two millions of bales of cotton for her 
unfortunate friends of the South and Southwest, she would, with equal pleasure, 
carry two millions of sacks of corn for her particular friends of the North and West; 
and two millions of bales of Lowells for her favorites of New England. If she 
carried an hundred and twenty thousand hogsheads of tobacco for the first, she 
would carry as many barrels of flour for the second, and as many quintals of fish for 
the third. If she carried an hundred and eighty-seven thousand hogsheads of sugar 
for the first, she would carry as many bushels of wheat for the second, and as many 
casks of cheese for the third. If she carried eighty thousand tierces of rice for 
the first, she would carry as many hogsheads of bacon for the second, and as many 
firkins of butter for the third. Beyond this, however, she could not go." 

"But we would blockade your ports, and then what would you do?" Why, 
then, the British carrying trade must stop — her cotton factories must stop, and an 
immense trade must be stifled. She would, therefore, tell you, " that while she 
was ever disposed to respect the rights of beligerents, yet when the conduct of one 
of the parties was so manifestly leveled at her interest, she never could submit to it, 
unless it was in the strictest conformity to the law of nations. If, therefore, you 
did not put a force at every Sjuthern port greater than she could put there, then 
you would be considered without the pale of that principle of international law, 
which considers no blockade valid unless it be by a force sufficient to sustain the 
blockade. But still, as her sense of justice always weighed down every other con- 
sideration in her estimation, and as the question might be settled by the best of 
arguments, a practical experiment, she would propose to you to try the force of your 
one seventy-fuur and three frigates, against her eight seventy-four's. And if your 
force proved sufficient to sustain the blockade, why then with all courtesy she would 
yield her trade and her factories, in deference to the law of nations." 

But all this is upon the supposition, that upon the division, you help yourselves as 
your churches have done, to all the joint property. But this may not be the case. 
What your best men have already done (or plainly mean to do,) it is very natural, 
you may wish to do ; but then there is such a mixture of officers and meia from 
both sections, in the army and navy, and the several departments of State, and such 
a dispersion of the joint property all over the Union, that in the scramble we should 
be certain to get some. All the ports and arsenals within our limits of course we 
should get; and in the breaking up, the chances for the army and navy would be 
in favor of that side on which justice lay : for these servants of the nation at large 
have none of your abolition notions. They would lean to the side of the injured 
party ; or at least, they would be apt to divide according to their domestic relations. 

Let us now come to the battle field. Here you think you would have greatly 
the advantage of us, because you look only at the numerical strength of the two 
parties. But what is numerical strength in modern warfare '? Absolutely nothing, 
where both parties can carry to the field more than either can support there. We can 
muster into the field an army five times as large as Buonaparte conquered half Eu- 
rope with, five times as large as Alexander conquered the world with, and larger 
than any nation upon the face of the globe ever carried to the field, save one ; and that 
ene was whipt by a little band, no braver than the Texan Rangers. It is almost a 
year since wa: was declared against Mexico, and yet with the whole numerical force 
of the Union at command, we have but a little over twenty thousand men in arms 
between the Rio Grande and the Pacific. The Government is already, even in the 
midst of victory, not a little embarrassed for means to carry it on; and many (you, as 
ever, among the f iremost,) are complaining bitterly of the expenses of this war. 
You and your confederates would not hope to conquer me and mine with aa army 



GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 25 

less than five times as large as this. You could not expect to organize such an army, 
put it under marching orders, and reach the Southern frontier in less than four months 
from the time you begin. Now, four months, counting two at thirty, and two at 
thirty-one days, each, make one hundred and twenty-two days; and your own 
most distinguished son tells us, that the present war costs the country a half mil- 
lion per day. Now, if twenty thousand men give a half a million per day, a hun- 
dred thousand men will give two millions and a half per day ; or three hundred 
and five millions for one hundred and twenty-two days. That is to say, Sister, three 
hundred and five millions, before the first shot is fired. But, as we could bring into 
the field one hundred and fifty thousand men with the greatest ease, you could 
hardly hope to conquer us short of seven years. The expenses of a seven year's 
war, at your son's rates, would amount to six thousand three hundred and eighty- 
seven millions five hundred thousand dollars. How do you think you could stand 
that, Sister? But suppose our one hundred and fifty thousand should, by good 
luck, happen to conquer your one hundred thousand; why then you would have to 
recruit your army with new levies to the amount of one hundred and fifty thousand 
in all. Now, when we saw you coming with one hundred and fifty thousand, we 
would meet them with two hundred thousand, and the same fortune might attend 
our arms as before. In the mean rime, with a debt of six thousand three hundred 
and eio-hty-seven millions five hundred thousand dollars, and equipments to be fur- 
nished de novo, it would be very inconvenient for you to get up and support the 
new levies long enough to get to the battle-field. Do you not perceive, then, 
that to presume upon your numbers, is very great folly ? Certainly the Southron 
who entertains any fears upon that head, must be a very great coward, or a very 
great simpleton. " But there is your internal foe ; what would you do with that?' ' 
I answer, just keep it making supplies for the army. No man who is acquainted 
with the feelings and condition of this people, could suffer one moment's uneasiness, 
if you were to come to our borders and blow the blast of freedom as loud as three- 
fold thunder. I will put the case in the strongest possible light. Suppose, instead 
of our advancing to meet you upon your own territory, we allow you to advance 
into the very heart of Virginia, and that from every plantation that yon pass, and 
from all others within three miles of you, you gather recruits of field-hands. Do 
you suppose, that ten, twenty and fifty miles from your track, there would he any 
insurrection at all ? You may rest assured there would not be ; for the plain and 
obvious reason, that these people can form no concert of action ; and to rise by 
households or plantations at a time, without any arms, without discipline, without 
plan, would be to insure their destruction — a truth which, if they did not foresee, 
they would soon learn from the fate of those who should attempt a revolt. I put out 
of view all feeling of attachment from these people to their owners, which in thou- 
sands, and tens of thousands of instances, would be a certain guaranty against hos- 
tility from them under any circumstances. All that your armies could p'ck up and 
take care of, might follow you; but no more, my word for it. This is not mere specu- 
lation ; it lias been twice demonstrated by actual experiment. During the Revolu- 
tionary War, the British were all through our country. Masters, fur a time, of 
most of the territory of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia ; but such 
a thing as the slaves taking sides against their masters, I never heard of. But I 
heard of thousands of instances, wherein they served them in battle, took care of the 
wives and children, bore them away from peril, (sometimes on their own backs,) 
kept watch for their safety, bore tidings of them to their masters by night, and per- 
formed ten thousand kind offices to them besides. During the last war, the British 
were all along my coast, landing when they would and where they would ; and 
yet no one ever heard of a revolt of slaves occasioned by their presence or encour- 
agement. They took off some, to be sure, and so might you, if you felt disposed to 
burden your armies with them ; but the moment you dismissed them, to take care 
of themselves, that moment would they begin to perish, or go back to their piasters. 
These facts should satisfy any reasonable being, that a revolt of the slaves is not at 
all to be dreaded. No people, profoundly ignorant of government, with no settled 



26 LETTER FROM 

rights of property, with no means of defence, with no means of subsistence, with 
no confidence of security, could gain or hope to gain anything by flinging off their 
vassalage. Negroes know this, or what is the same thing, instinct teaches it to 
thein. Your people, Sister, are lamentably ignorant of the true condition of this 
people — lamentably ignorant of their views and feeling ; and, what is worse, you 
are wilfully ignorant of them, and (worse still,) you are maliciously ignorant of them. 
The history of the South is just precisely the history of the world in this regard. 
Slavery has existed in every nation upon the earth — more dangerous slavery far, 
than ours ; yet we hardly ever hear of its being taken into the account of war, by any 
nation, and as seldom of its ever embarrassing a war in any way. But I have put 
the case too strong. If we come to the fighting point, we will not show the indif- 
ference to your arms that we have shown to your envy and your insults — we will 
not be as slow to resist your physical, as we have been to resist your moral (or ra- 
ther immoral) encroachments. The first battle, I predict, will not be fought on 
slave-territory. 

Now, remove all danger of insurrection, and I think you will have to admit, that 
instead of being as you suppose, the weakest people in the world, we are the strong- 
est people in the world. This is reducible almost to a demonstration. To illustrate 
it, let us suppose (as we can without an effort) that half your population were like 
the beasts, birds, and reptiles of Egypt, i. e. held sacred. That neither your friends 
nor your foes would under any circumstances, molest them. That they labored in- 
dustriously from year's end to year's end, in the production of the most valuable com- 
modities in the world, and that they gave all the profits of their industry, beyond 
a bare support to the other half — would not this half, other things being equal, be 
the most invincible people on the face of the globe ? Most assuredly they would ; 
for the unanswerable reason, that ev cry man of them might take the field, without 
abstracting a scruple from the care and support of his family, the annual productions 
of the country, its agriculture, commerce, or manufactures. Who might not well 
afford to go to war, when others bore the expenses of it ! Now, with the qualifica- 
tion just mentioned, (and which I think just no qualification at all,) we are precisely 
in this situation. Almost ever since the government was established, from a half to 
three fourths of the foreign commerce of the country has been sustained by South- 
ern productions; productions, which left free to seek their own markets, and the 
revenues of which confined within our own limits, would make us as rich as we are 
powerful, if all foreign commerce were cut off, all our efficient industry might be 
turned to raising provisions and clothing for the army. But how is it with you, 
Sister 1 To go to war you must take your men from their families, turn your pro- 
ductive industry to consuming industry — close up your redundant factories — dis- 
mantle your shipping, and with your means of paying, thus reduced, accumulate an 
enormous debt upon your shoulders — not as great, I grant you, as I made it upon 
your sjn's data, by four-fifths; but far too great for you to endure. This, too, is 
a fact established by history. You pronounced yourself ruined by the war of 1812, 
when it was not a year old, and you pointed to your useless shipping, by which you 
had lived, as the proof. Hence it is, and only hence, that you ever have complained, 
and ever will complain of war. What nonsense is it then, for you to be bullying us 
with your freemen. The lion's skin cannot make the wearer a lion, as fable shows. 

All these things have I known for many years past — but knowing my sons to be 
too impetuous any how, and that many of them thought of the issues of a war be- 
tween us, as you think of them — that their error in this regard tended to the peace 
of the country, and to the perpetuity of that union which I revered as the ark of 
our safety, the pledge and the proof of our glory and our greatness, and the monu- 
ment of our wisdom, I have hitherto forborne to disclose them. But the time has 
come, when silence in this regard becomes cowardice, and forbearance a decoy to 
you, treason to the country, desertion of my children, and desecration of the most 
holy relics of our fathers. By your magic art, a spirit has been waked up which 

baffles all description, and all philosophy. This , what shall I call it? verily 

I am afraid to designate it. I was going to say " hdl bora" — but it seems to have 



GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 27 

too much religion in it for that. " Enthusiasm?" It has too much of perdition in 
it f or that - — this Massachuseltsia, this satanic puritanism, this puritanic Satan- 
ism, is laying waste all that is great, and glorious, and good, and beautiful and love- 
ly, in our Heaven befriended land. The bunds of religion, patriotism, kindred and 
party, all snap at its touch. Reason is lost on it, persuasion insults it, endurance 
provokes it. There is but one expedient left ; which is to hold up the mirror of the 
future before it, and if this will not stay its onward march, why, then let it come; and 
when it shall have completed its work, and Despotism shall smile over its ruins, 
and exclaim, "I told you so!" I, at least, can reply with a clear conscience, 
"thou canst not say I did it." 

Your indignant Sister, 

GEORGIA. 



LETTER V 



Madam, 

When I took up the pen for the first time to address you, I had not the most 
distant idea of extending my remarks beyond the limits of one or two letters at farth- 
est ; and here am I at the fifth. .Well, bear with me ; I have never troubled you 
before, and I do not expect ever to trouble you again. 

I have brought your history down to the present time, and I have foreshown you 
the dreadful end of it. In so doing, I have often had to trace your windings through 
good company, who honestly espoused your principles — or Tather your opinions— and 
who may perhaps feel themselves implicated by what I have said of you. If so, 
they do both themselves and me injustice. I have noticed your conduct in these 
connections only to show its peculiar features in you ; such as cruelty, vindictive- 
ness, inconsistency, ingratitude, and the like ; and not to censure it per se. Thus, I 
have noticed your conduct during the last war, not because you opposed it, much 
less to cast reflections upon any who oppose this, but to show the mode and manner 
of your opposition— the unreasonableness of it, in the mother of half the impressed 
seamen of the country— and the unblushing confidence, not to say effrontery, with 
which you turned it to your own private and special interest ; but more especially 
to show the precise time and place, at which you formed the resolution to crush the 
slave power at the South, or to crush the Union. This was one of the leading ob- 
jects of the Hartford Convention, as one of its resolutions proves, and hence the per- 
fect identity in policy and pursuit of the Trio who formed it. All since has been 
merely in subservience to this plan. This much, however, I will venture to say, 
that to oppose this war, or any other, declared by the constituted authorities of the 
country, by ivithholding the means necessary to a successful prosecution of it, argues 
a pride or an obstinacy of opinion, which extinguishes every noble and patriotic feel- 
ing of the human heart, and even this kind of oppression is magnanimous, when com- 
pared with that of Mr. Wilmot. 

I have adverted to your fawning on the Government for protection, not to cast re- 
flections upon those who honestly espouse the restrictive system, (among whom are 
some of the wisest and the best) but to show youi bearing and daring through the 
whole progress of the system. I meant to hold up the Arch-Abolitionist to the eyes 
of the worfd in her true character; and I did not mean to allow her to escape expo- 
sure by getting into genteel company. I think I see plainly that the days of this 
great and glonous Republic are numbered— that it is soon to become the victim of 
one of the most frightful, disgusting monsters, that ever reared its head among a 
Christian people. I consider you the mother of it ; and I wish to leave your portrait 
to our common offspring, that they may know its lineage from its resemblance Ui Us 



28 LETTER FROM 

parent. The time has come, I conceive, when you should be taught that forbearance 
is not insensibility, that courtesy is not cowardice, nor charity servility. These 
pearls your Southern Sisters have been casting before you ever since you breathed 
the air of freedom; and they have reaped the reward which, with the light before 
them, they might have expected. Verily, Madam, the indulgence of the family to 
your failings has been your ruin, as it is likely to be their own. Had your plots 
against the Government, in 1813, been properly rebuked, your influence upon it 
would not have been as mischievous as it has been since. Had your Abolitionism 
been properly met fifteen years ago, it would not now be riding over Church and 
State, with Turkish indifference, Vandal cruelty, and Cretean perfidy. How comes 
it to pass that, with only occasional bursts of indignation from the halls of Congress, 
when your intrusions became insufferable, reiterated by a few partisan editors, you 
have been treated with uniform deference and respect by the whole Sisterhood ? 
How happens it that the " chivalrous South," that "high-minded and spirited peo- 
ple" of whom we hear so much and see so little, have borne your encroachments and 
3'our insults so long and so patiently, with scarcely a word of recrimination, and with 
scarcely a glance of contempt after the injury was inflicted ? I do not wonder, pet- 
ted as you have been, and indulged as you have been, that you have at last become 
intolerable. And how is this to be accounted for? I will tell you. The people of 
the South are really not wanting in the virtues which the)' claim for themselves — 
though greatly wanting in prudence, when they become their own criers of them — 
especially to you, who have small dealings in these wares, though you deal largely 
in everything else. They love the Union, as I have said, almost to idolatry. All 
the nobler feelings of their hearts gather round it. They will therefore bear much, 
rather than do anything that may weaken its bonds; — they will bear almost every- 
thing rather than give it up. Withal, the}' are a courteous and confiding people. 
All this you know; and as you are as vigilant of the moral world, to see what can 
be made out of it, as you are of the physical, you have fixed the screws upon these 
noble affections, and you have be^n calmly twisting them for thirty years, to see how 
far they will stretch, and how much they will bleed before they will snap. Hence our 
people bear and forbear, they shriek and solicit, they denounce and forgive, they hope 
against hope, they appeal to your mercy, your justice, your patriotism, your promises 
— everything, rather than level a blow at you that may recoil upon the Union. Duly 
to appreciate this experiment, you must suppose a physician at the bed-side of a dy- 
ing child, with the sanative in his hand, and the tortured mother, begging for it — 
her monny gone, her jewels gone, the hallowed braid, the bridal ring — and yet the 
wretch unsatisfied. Here is the secret of their concessions and their courtesies to 
you ; and I beseech you by — your purse, do not mistake them. 

And now, having .closed your history, 1 have again and again, run my mind's eye 
over your life, to see if I could not find one magnanimous, noble, generous act to re- 
lieve its dark shading ; and I cannot find one. If 1 could, I certainly would give 
3 T ou credit for it; for it would be wanton cruelty to do you injustice, when justice 
itself is little else than unmitigated castigation. You have erected a monument 
to be sure ; and what barbarian has not done that ? But what barbarian ever be- 
fore raised a monument in honor of his ancestors, at the very moment when he was 
pulling down the most magnificent and hallowed structures of those very ancestors? 
What barbarian ever before commemorated by a monument the valor of hi? sires, at 
the very moment when he was proclaiming to the world, that the only fruit of that 
valor, was a government of slaves, hostile to the laws of God and nature, and achieved 
by the joint labors of their fathers and manstealers? Even your monument is a de- 
ception ; for it does not indicate the true feelings of the builder. Had you taken 
the stones of it from your father's sepulchres, and ground up their bones to make 
the cement of it, it would have been a more truthful remembrancer. Then it would 
have proclaimed to unborn generations, the heroism of your ancestors, and the apos- 
racy of their children. "There it stands!" exclaimed your son, triumphantly; 
rhen probably some of the very blood that it covered, would have been considered 
pollution to any pulpit in Boston. I, too, have erected a monument. Its place is in 



GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 29 

the heart of my first and principal city, and the names which it perpetuates are ste- 
reotyped upon the hearts of my children. The one is Greene, the noble son of that 
ignoble mother, the dwarf of the Hartford Convention— she who now wars upon 
the land that contains his relics, and who would deny his children the common rights 
of American citizens. But when I launch a curse at her, which shall light upon 

him when I come to treat the slaves of Greene, with more respect than the child 

ren of Greene— when I defame the land from which I draw my chief support- 
When I yoke myself to a Jezebel, in her unholy war upon God's servants, God's 
altars, and man's most hallowed shrines — may my right hand forget her cunning, 
and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth ! The other is Pulaski, the dis- 
tinguished Pole, who fell in defence of the city which now embosoms his cenotaph. 
His Mother, too, was set upon by tyrants, who first massacred and then quartered 
her. In her death-struggle, I did not justify her enemies and condemn her.* I did 
not solemnly declare that to honor her heroes with praise for their victories, would 
be " an encouragement to an unjust, unnecessary, and iniquitous war ;' f but I gave 
her my tenderest sympathies, my heart's warmest affections, and a son in her troubles, 
as she gave me4 I mention these things not in the spirit of boasting, but that the 

* During the war of 1812, Governor Strong, of Massachusetts, in one of his Mes- 
sages held this language, which was cordially approved by an overwhelming majority of 
the Legislature : " No State in the Union can have a greater interest, or feel a stronger 
desire to protect Commerce, and maintain the legitimate, rights of Seamen, than this Com- 
monwealth. Owners of one-third of all the navigation, and furnishing one-half of 
all the seamen, b;c." " Great Britain only claims the right of taking her own sub- 
jects from neutral vessels. In doing this, from similaritv of lanaruage, our citizens have 
been sometimes subject to impressment. But, so far as I have heard, they have been 
discharged, when application was made in their behalf, and evidence furnished of 
their citizenship. In some instances there may have been a wanton exercise of power 
by impressing officers, but it is impossible for the best regulated State wholly to control 
the action of" its subjects, S$c." " She asserts that her seamen are essential to her safe- 
ty ; that though they are not liable to be taken from our national ships, and we have a 
right to protect them, while they remain within our territory; yet, if they pass into her 
dominions, or if, in transacting their own affairs on the highway of nations they come 

within her power, she has a right to take them by virtue of her prior claim that she 

never can relinquish the right, so long as we employ her seamen, without endangering 
the existence of her Navy. What hope of a peace, then, can reasonably be entertained, 
when such a sacrifice is required of her ?" This from the mother of half the impressed 
seamen of the country, and the employer of half the British seamen onboard our vessels ! 

t On the 13th June, 1813, the Senate of Massachusetts passed the following resolution : 
" Whereas, a proposition has been made to this Senate for the adoption of sundry reso- 
lutions, expressive of their sense of the gallantry and good conduct exhibited by Cap. 
tain James Lawrence, Commander of the United States ship of war Hornet, and the 
officers and crew of that ship, in the destruction of his Britanic Majesty's ship Peacock. 
And whereas, it has been found that former resolutions of this kind, passed on similar 
occasions relative to other officers engaged in like service, have given great discontent 
to many of the good people of this Commonwealth, it being considered by them an encour- 
agement and excitement to the present unjust, unnecessary and iniquitous war; and on 
that account the Senate deem it their duty to refrain from acting onsaid proposition, &c. : 

" Resolved, as the sense of 1'ie Senate of Massachusetts, that in a war like the present, 
waged without justifiable cause, and prosecuted in a manner which indicates that con- 
quest and ambition are its real motives, it is not becoming a moral and religious people 
to express any approbation of military or naval exploits, which are not immediately con- 
nected with our sea coast and soil." 

The last soil that the gallant Lawrence ever trod was the soil of Massachusetts. 
" Don't give up the Ship !" were his last words. Let them be the battle-cry of all who 
would keep the old Constitution afloat. 

t The author doubtless alludes to Dr. Paul I. Eve, a distinguished Professor of Sur- 
gery in the Medical College of Augusta, Georgia, who was foi a time Surgeon in the 
Polish Army. — Eds. 



30 LETTER FROM 

world may look upon us side by side, under all like circumstances. I do not profess 
to be faultless, but my faults have been such as could injure none but myself. 1 have 
never interfered with a Sister's domestic concerns — I have never abused her for mis- 
fortunes of my own begetting — I have never endeavored to stir her domestics to 
bloodshed — I have never lingered when my country called me to her defence — I 
have never asked her for special favors to me — I have never claimed pay of her, for 
troops which never served her — I have never been an ingrate to my benefactor — I 
have never violated a compromise — I have never complained of the allotment of 
powers amongst us ; though that allotment leave9 me almost powerless. 

All this is true, and it is no less true of me than of all my Southern Sisters. Can 
you say as much ? No, madam, no. Take the string of acquittances and substi- 
tute ever for never in them, and you will have your character fairly but delicately 
drawn. And now to the point of all my letters. How comes it to pass, that the 
strongest of the sisterhood have banded with you, against me ? This is amazing — 
astounding — soul-inflaming. " We have a fellow-feeling upon the subject of Slave- 
ry." Granted; nobody censures you for that. But does a fellow-feeling upon the 
subject of Slavery, drown every other noble and generous feeling of the human heart? 
Does it abolish the distinctions of character — of virtue and vice — of truth and false- 
hood — of right and wrong ? Does it reverse the edicts of conscience, the laws of 
Nature, the rules of society, and the canons of Divine truth ? Does it turn insult, 
abuse, oppression, usurpation and aggression into virtues? Does it place a Wash- 
ington and an Arnold upon the same level ? Verily, from what is passing before 
our eves, it would seem so. Saint and sinner, Christian and infidel, black and white, 
law-maker and law-breaker, magistrate and culprit, all band together in fraternal 
embrace, and cry out triumphantly, " See how we are united as one man upon 
this subject !" The Christian goes deliberately to work to root out Slavery from tke 
bible — the fanatic to root it out of the church — the politician to root it out of the con- 
stitution, and the disorganizer too root everything out of the country which does not 
work against it. Out of such a compound no good can come. Of this I am almost 
as confident as if God had revealed it to me. An explosion is all that can be expec- 
ted from it. An explosion, which I should not be at all surprised to see shaking 
down the pillars of Church and State at the North, while the sound thereof is hardly 
heard at the South. I think 1 see the elements at work which are to produce it. 
The grave and the reasonable of the Church — the Wavlands, the Bangs's, and the 
Rices are clamored down — and the wild and boisterous enthusiast rules the Synod. 
The hand of Justice trembles when a Slave case is before her — Magistracy is awe- 
struck when called to deliver up the fugitive to his master, and too often appeases the 
mob at the expense of the constitution. Rank violations of contract, followed by Heav- 
en daring murder, find apologists, if not protectors, in men of note. The people are 
inflamed with harangues against Slavery, and, in theirmadness, set upon their fel- 
low-citizens. Such is the state of things at the North. But this compacted pha- 
lanx is arrayed against the Slavery of the South, and we have seen its plan of at- 
tack. What now has it done — in all its unity of strength, what has it done ? It has 
driven home Southern Christians, and seized on their property; and yet never was 
the Southern Church in a more healthful condition. It so happened (I will not say 
it was so ordered,) that of a single Church five hundred thousand moved off" as if by 
one impulse — nearly as many more of another Church did the like. Thenceforward 
all has been peace among this people. Southern power ivas to have been put down. 
We have seen the fruits of this effort. Slavery ivas to be hemmed in. By means 
almost miraculous, the empire of Slavery has been extended beyond the stretch of 
any other empire on the glohe in the same time. When the battle went North, de- 
feat drove us back — now the battle woes South, victories, the most dazzling, cover 
our armies with glory. Slavery iras to be driven out of the country. Thirty years' 
lab.tr of Sphynx, and seven years' labor of the undivided band, has not emancipated 
one single slave, nor cut a thread of Slavery's bonds. But it has cut the bonds of the 
Union, riddled the Constitution, and disgraced the Country. Who but madmen or 
desperadoes would persist in it ? Well, if it must be so, come on w ith your solid 



GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 31 

columns. Now that you are strong, be a bold and high-minded enemy. If you are 
determined to bring us to the bayonet, come manfully up to the mark at once — declare 
the connexion between you and the slave-holder at an end — do this by some undis- 
guised act, which shall put him in an attitude of defence. Do not receive him in 
the synod as a brother, and when you get him there, swarm round him in numbers 
irresistible, pronounce him a heretic, tear off his clerical robes, drive him away, and 
appropriate to yourselves his earnings. Do not meet hiin in the Council-Chamber 
as a friend, and, Joab-like, while you are greeting him as an ally, svab him under 
the fifth rib. You are now strong — fling off your disguises, civil and ecclesiastical — 
pull down the Stars and Stripes, and run up the black flag — call in your sappers and 
miners from the Temple, the Capitol, and the seats of Justice, and rally them to a 
more honorable warfare. Mr. Wii.mot's movement encourages me to hope for this 
much at least. By a single leap from — no one knows where — he has reached the 
fame in the political world, which his distinguished namesake, the Earl of Rochester, 
bears in the moral world. Let him henceforward be called "My Lord," whatever 
the constitution may say to the contrary. This first and only breach of it, on the part 
of the South, will be pardoned in consideration of his matchless intrepidity. His 
achievement is a grateful presage to us that abolitionism is soon to assume a more 
tangible form. It will be a relief to us to be done with the everlasting irritants which 
you are applying to us, to know that we are through the blistering and cauterising 
process — and that your next visit is to be decisive of our fate for weal or for woe. 
Your agitating, from which you promise yourselves so much, and which you think 
has done so much, be pleased to remember is not the thing which annoys us. You 
may igitate until all the peculence of your community rises to the top, as it is fast 
doing, for aught that we care ; if, in your shivers, you will be good enough to keep 
your hands oft* our bonds and title-papers. The agitation of a distant pack in full cry 
gives us no uneasiness ; but the agitation of rats in the escritoir is insufferably tanta- 
lizing. GEORGIA. 



LETTER VI. 



Madam, 

I said in my first letter that if you pushed your abolitionism to the disruption 
of the Union (which I see plainly you mean to do,) the consequences would be far 
more disastrous to you than to me. This 1 asserted with much confidence, and I am 
now prepared to give you the reason of a prediction which seems so preposterous to 
you. I have already shown you that, with nothing to dread from our slaves, we 
of the South are better prepared for war than any people on the face of the earth ; 
and I showed you that the Suuthron must be nothing but a hare in man's form, who 
entertains any fear from that quarter. I have none — not the least. I reminded 
you also, that the abolition cohorts never could stick together through a single cam- 
paign — 'that they never would bear the expense of it — and that of all others you 
would be the first to sneak out of the war upon this ground. You never have fa- 
vored a war of your country yet, an'i you never will, until war becomes a money 
making business ; and as to binding you to the common standard by pledges and pro- 
mises, that is out of the question. You have no friend who wuuld trust you a minute 
upoa the faith of these. Wince not at this — you cannot cite me to a pledge that you 
ever kept. But these are net the grounds of my confidence— at least not the principal 
grounds. It rests upon the word of God. I approach this with solemn reverence, and 
I beg you for once to fling aside your theatrics and advance to it calmly with me. I 
confess, that if to hold slaves be a sin urrder all circumstances, I am a sinner and a 
great sinner ; but God knows that [ do not know how to rid myself of the sin. with- 
out committing what seems to me a still greater sin. But I am perfectly convinced 



32 LETTER FROM 

that slavery is not a sin under all circumstances, and believe that every man who 
so designates it will have to answer to God for most impious blasphemy ; unless, for- 
sooth, an error of judgment, produced by a one-sided examination and an upsetting 
of Scripture interpretations, which have remained undisputed for three thousand 
years, may excuse him to his Maker. Still, this is only my opinion, and though 
it has been supported by the whole world, Jewish and Gentile, for many long cen- 
turies, and never was disputed until the rise of Abolitionism, it may possibly be 
wrong ; and therefore, after all, I may be a sinner in holding slaves. But certainly 
I am not a sinner against you, and supposing you no particeps criminis, He would 
hardly sustain you in a war got up to punish my transgression. But on your part 
the war will not even have this slight justification. It will be a war growing out 
of a long course of political shuffling and duplicity, under the guise of ami-slavery 
— every step of which is marked by some petty meanness or God-defying sin. 

I have to confess that some of my children have abused their authority oveT 
their slaves, and in some instances treated them with injustice and cruelty ; but 
the scenes which your AboliUon-libelers have pictured forth to stir the passions and 
move the heart — such as chaining the slave by his whole length to a prostrate log, 
and two men whipping him at the same time — putting him in a vat and turning a 
stream into it, which he could keep from drowning him only by bailing with immense 
and unremitted labor, without food or sleep for days— gibbeting him, and leaving 
his carcass to be devoured by vultures, with many other deeds of like kind, I never 
saw. The man who would do such a thing would be an object of universal detes- 
tation through the whole South, and would be amenable to the law as a murderer. 
The rule of my government is, that the master shall not exercise cruelty to his 
slaves; he shall allow them needful food and clothing, and he shall suffer death 
for the murder of them. Still, I confess, (for I will put down nothing here that 
history will not confirm.) that cruelties are sometimes exercised by the master upon 
the slave. Considering the number of masters and servants in this latitude, I can- 
not say that is often the case — in truth, it is very seldom the case. The reason 
is plain enough : it is not the master's interest to be cruel to his slave. And hence 
the slaves of the South have indulgences extended to them in hundreds and thou- 
sands of instances, that the white man never receives. They are hardly ever prose 
cuted but for the most heinous offences. Our penitentiaries are filled with whites, 
fir offences which slaves commit every day almost with impunity. If you did not 
suppose us both fools and brutes, you would learn from this the absurdity of your 
slanders in regard to our cruelty towards this people. What man so stupid and so 
brutal, as in cool-blood, to murder himself out of six or eight hundred dollars? 
Still, at times, passion gets the better of judgment and interest, and my children 
are cruel to their slaves. Against all such, here stands the record : " And ye 
masters do the same things unto them," (i. e., act from the same principle, with 
an eye to the will and glory of God,) "forbearing threatening," (and of course 

abuse,) " knowing that your Master also is in Heaven" " Masters give unto 

your servants that which is just and equal," (or equitable,) " knowing that ye also 
have a Master in Heaven." I have to confess, too, that in our courts, the rights 
of the slave are not as strictly regarded as the rights of the white man — not as 
strictly regarded I mean, by our juries, for as to our judges, if they lean at all, it 
is always on the side of the slave. I know of no case to the contrary. Against 
such juries the record speaks: "The Lord knoweth how to deliver," &.c, "and to 
reserve the unjust unto the day of Judgment." " God shall smite thee, thou ichited 
wall : for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smit- 
ten contrary to law?" " Moreover, I saw under the sun the place of judgment, 
that wickedness was there ; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there ; 
and I said in my heart : God shall judge the righteous and the wicked." 

I have to confess that some of my laws (very few,) are too severe upon slaves. 
If I am correct in my opinion here, this, at least, is my sin, whatever may be said 
of the others, which seem to me to belong to only a few of my children. These 
laws were deemed necessary to my safety at the time they were made, and are so 



GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 33 

considered by most of my family still. I know of no scripture that exactly meets 
such a case ; or I would frankly give it. Farther than this, I am unconscious of 
offending, in regard to my slaves. On the other hand, nine out of ten, if not ninety- 
nine out of an hundred of my unconverted children, treat their slaves kindly and hu- 
manely. The pious of my family regulate their conduct towards them strictly by 
the word of God. Our ministers preach to them, pray with them — in short, extend 
to them all the means of grace within their power. Many of them own none, and 
never will own any. Against all such, with many, very many, of your own chil- 
dren, will your arms be directed in the day of battle. You wage the war, knowing 
all this. 

Let us examine your character, and that of your children, by the same rule. I 
cannot take up each offence, and apply the appropriate scriptures to it, for this 
would require a pamphlet, if not a volume. You and your children, then, have dis- 
obeyed the commands of your government — you have spoken evil of it in times and 
ways innumerable — you have abused its magistrates — you have plotted against its 
integrity — you have violated your vows to it repeatedly — you have abused its pow- 
ers to your own selfish purposes — you have been ungrateful, malicious, void of natu- 
ral affection, slanderous, backbiting, headstrong, deaf to reason, covetous, despisers 
of those that are good, persecutors, injurious, breeders of mischief, stirrers up of strife 
— you have seduced servants from their mas'ers, harbored the servant and insulted 
the master — you (or your colleagues, whose conduct you approved,) have violated 
the constitution in refusing to deliver up fugitive slaves. You have passed laws to 
uphold your children in violating the constitution — you have driven from your 
churches as good men as this land, if not this world, holds; and, if all signs fail not, 
you will take their contributions (the largest in the Lord's treasury,) and spend them 
on their persecutors and defamers. You have (as I believe,) grossly perverted the 
Word of God, and made it speak a language which its Author never meant to speak. 
You have set upon good men of both parties, honestly and peaceably engaged in rid- 
ding the country of Slavery, in a way grateful to both master and servant, and love- 
begetting in all engaged in it. You have crippled their energies, and thwarted the 
noble enterprise by every means in your power. You have sent incendiary papers and 
pamphlets to the South, well calculated to enkindle a servile war in our families. 
This you have done in the name of Religion and Freedom ; but Religion returns you 
nothing but groans for your trouble, and Freedom moves not a hair's breadth to your 
embrace. Still you persist. No fruits yet, but the fruits of bitterness — no plan to 
be executed — no response to " What must we do ?" — nothing before you but anarchy 
and bloodshed — nothing behind you but discord and desolation — and still you persist. 
Hear the word of the Lord — it seems to me prophetic, as well as denunciatory. 

" This know, also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men will 
be lovers of their own selves — covetous, boasters, proud , blasphemtrs, disobedient to 
parents, unthankful, unholy, icithout natural affection, truce- breakers, false accusers, 

— fierce, despisers of tlwse that are good, traitors, heady, high minded, lovers 

of pleasures more than lovers of God ; having a form of godliness, but denying the 
power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into 
houses and lead captive silly women, laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, 
ever learning, and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes 
and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth ; men of corrupt minds, 
reprobate concerning the faith. But they shall proceed no farther , for their folly 
shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was." 

" The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations : and to reserve 
the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished : but chiefly them that walk 
after the flesh, &&., — and despise government. Presumptuous are they , self willed ; 
they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities. These are tells without water, clouds 
that are carried with a tempest, to whom the mist of darkness is reserved forever. 
For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts 
of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them, 
who live in error. While they promise them liberty, tney themselves are the servants 



34 LETTER FROM 

of corruption" "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools and changed 

the o-lory of the incorruptible God into an image made like unto corruptible man, Sic, 
&, C-j — who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the crea- 
ture mwe than the Creator, who is blessed forever — being filled with all unright- 
eous wickedness, co vetousness, maliciousness ; full of envy, murder, debate, de- 
ceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters— despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil 
things, disobedient to parents, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implaca- 
ble, unmerciful. Who knowing the judgment of God, (that they which commit 
such things are worthy of death,) not only do the same, but have pleasure in them 
that do (hemP 

" Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers ; For there is no power but of 
God ; the powers that be are ordained of God. JVliosoever therefore resisteth the 

power resisteth the ordinance of God Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not 

only for wrath but also for conscience sake Render therefore to all their dues ; 

tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to 
whom honor." 

" Submit yourselves unto every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake; whether 
it be to the King as supreme ; or unto Governors, as unto them that are sent by him 
for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well. For so is 
the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish 
men, and not as using your liberty, for a cloak of maliciousness, but as servants of 
God." 

" The works of the flesh are hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, 

seditions, heresies. (But the fruit of the Spirit, is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, 
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance ; against such there is no law.)' T 

" A good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit ; neither does a corrupt tree bring 
forth good fruit — For every tree is known by his own fruit, &c. " 

"Vow, and pay unto the Lord your vows, #c." " When thou vowest a 

vow unto God, defer not to pay it ; for he hath no pleasure, &c. ; — pay that which 
thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest 
vow and not pay. Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin, neither say thou be- 
fore the Angel, it was an error : wherefore should God be angry at thy voice and 
destroy the work of thine hands?" 

" But let none of you suffer, &c, as an evil-doer, or as a busy-body in other menh 
matters." 

" And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not 
the beam that is in thine own eye'?" 

Relying upon these scriptures, I fear you not ; nor all who may combine with 
you. I mark your gathering hosts, as calmly as I view the setting sun New 
York is your strongest ally. The plague spot is upon her. She has the guilt of 
kidnapping upon her skirts. It was but late ly, her sons collected the last bonds 
given to them by mine, for negroes, which they brought hither in chains from Africa. 
On her statute book, may be seen laws more cruel to the slave, than any that are 
to be found on mine. Her Governors have overleaped the Constitution, to protect 
the slave, while the black freeman begs for bread in her streets. 

Her religious press, is closed to the complaints and arguments of injured Christians, 
South. Her political press, holds up to scorn and contempt her noblest sons, because 
they will not forswear themselves to further a lawless warfare upon Southern rights. 
I do not fear New York. 

Ohio is a strong and clamorous ally. Ohio permits the emancipated slave to buy 
land in her domain, pay for it, and then looks camly on, while her son's repel him 
penniless from her borders. Hear their tender breathings of mercy and compassion for 
hose in whose behalf she is laying waste Church and State : 

" Resolved, That we will not live among negroes ; as we have settled here first 
we have fully determined that we will resist the settlement of blacks and mulattoes 
in this county to the full extent of our means — the bayonet not excepted. 

" Resolved, That the blacks of this county be, and they are respectfully requested 



GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 35 

to leave the county on or before the 1st day of March, 1847 ; and in the case of their 
neglect or refusal to comply with this request, ive pledge ourselves to remove them 
peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must. 

" Resolved, That we who are here assembled, pledge ourselves not to employ, or 
trade with any black or mulatto person, in any manner whatsoever, or permit them 
to have any grinding done at our mills, after the first day of January next." 

Abolition looks calmly, if not approvingly, upon all this, and reads us lectures on 
the demoralizing tendency of slavery ! 

" I wish," said a Virginian to his brother, resident in Ohio, " to emancipate one 
hundred slaves, and I desire you to take them to Ohio." " I cannot do it," replied 
the brother. "The citizens of Ohio will not allow me to bring one hundred negroes 
among them to settle. But do you take them to Wheeling, and there place them 
on a steamboat for Cincinnati, and speak of taking them to New-Orleans ; and while 
you are looking out for another boat, give the chance, and the Abolitionists will steal 
the whole of them and run them off, and then celebrate a perfect triumph over them. 
But if you take them to the same men, and ask them to receive and take care of 
them, they will tell you to take care of them yourself." I do not fear Ohio. 

Pennsylvania is another strong confederate. She too, if I mistake not, is an old 
kidnapper, though less guilty than New York, and both less guilty than yourself. 
This used to be the great slave market of the Union. Many a slave is now living 
who was sold from that State while its free laws were running to maturity. Thus 
did most of the confederates of the original household — make laws to emancipate their 
slaves at some distant day, and in the mean time sell all that could be sold to the 
trader. Hence the small black population in those States. Such a combination as 
this I never can fear until I distrust the truth of God. I could not fear it under any 
circumstances; much less can I fear it, when the proof stands prominently forth, 
that its aim is not liberty, but power. It works admirably to your purpose thus far ; 
but take care, one and all of you, that the storm-spirit which you have raised does 
not spend its strength upon your heads, and leave us untouched, as I have already 
intimated. But few men among you have now moral firmness enough to brave its 
fury in defence of the Constitution, and they may be, probably will be, prostrated by 
it, but I shall be greatly disappointed if, like Aristides the Just, they do not live 
to see the demagogues who now revile t l iem, doing homage to their virtues. Be 
this as it may, should they be doomed to fall to rise no more, history will deck their 
urns with her richest garlands, while she turns with loathing from the graves of the 
Wilmots, the Giddings's, et omne id genus. A couple of bipeds, for whom the 
English language has no appropriate name that decency will tolerate, have published 
them to the world as " Betrayers of Freedom," because, forsooth, they could 
not stretch their consciences to Mr. Wilmot's measure. This is by no means sur- 
prising. A dreadful moral disease has seized on the body politic North, the stench 
of which naturally allures such insects as Greeley and McElrath, which, in 
their disports over the infected carcasses, occasionally light, of course, upon the phy- 
sicians, who, at the peril of life, and with a benevolence sublime, labor to arrest 
it. But at the close of a long lecture upon the anatomy of Massachusetts, I can- 
not longer fix my attention upon these muscae, without the assistance of burnt sugar 
or chloride of lime. Leaving her to them and them to her, I turn to the pleasing 
task of re-publishing the names of those noble spirits, which the patrons of mobs, 
and the apologists of murderers, have dared to imprint upon their dirty sheet. I give 
the list with another heading — let Time determine which is the most appropriate : 



36 LETTER FROM 



THE 

GOOD SAMARITANS, 

WHO, FINDING 

THEIR COUNTRY STRIPPED AND WOUNDED BY ABOLITIONISTS, 

AFTER THE PRIEST OF THEIR OWN LAND HAD PASSED CARE- 
LESSLY BY HER ON THE ONE HAND, AND THE 
LEVITE ON THE OTHER, 

HAD COMPASSION ON HER, AND BOUND UP HER WOUNDS, 

AND 

BORE HER TO A PLACE OF SAFETY. 

BY THEIR VIRTCES, 

WAS HER LIFE PROLONGED— 

TO WHAT PERIOD, THE FUTURE MUST REVEAL. 



SENA TORS, 

New- York, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, 

D. S. Dickinson. E. A. Hannigan, Sidney Breese. Lewis Cass. 
Jesse D. Bright. 

REPRESENTATIVES, 

New-York, Pennsylvania, New- Jersey, Illinois, 

Stephen Strong, James Thompson, Joseph Edsall. D. B. Ficklin, 

W.W.Woodworth Rich. Brodhead, "• A. Douglass, 

Joseph Russell. James Black, Ohio, Robert Smith, 

Jacob Erdman, F . A . Cunningham, A " M'Clernand. 

Indiana, Henry D. Foster, Joseph Morris Iowa, 

Wm. W. Wick, Wm - S - Garvin, i saac p ARISH , ' S. Leffler. 

Robert D. Owen, ^- J- Ingersoll, Wm. Sawyer, Michigan, 

Thos. J. Henley. Moses McClean. Henry St. John. J. S. Chipman. 

From the above list it appears, that of six and twenty Senators from the North- 
ern and North-western States, but Jive had firmness to support the Constitution, 
against the Wilmot onslaught; and that of one hundred and thirty-three Represen- 
tatives, only twenty-six had firmness enough to do the like — a wonderful coincidence 
of proportions in both Houses. These are things of melancholy portent. If they 
do not open the eyes of the South to the perils of her situation, and silence the bick- 
erings of her sons about Whiggery and Democracy, and unite them in some plan of 
systematic opposition to Abolitionism, why then let them take the consequences. I 
would rather see South Carolina moving in this matter than nobody ; but I would 
rather see any other State in the Union taking lead in it than South Carolina — for 
obvious reasons. What I think should be done, hereafter. 

GEORGIA. 



GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 37 



LETTER VII. 

Madam, 

How strange, and yet iow fortunate ! I had just closed my last letter, with 
an earnest request to you to leave the Union, and a final adieu, when I received the 
Fifteenth Annual Report of the Board of Managers of the Massachusetts Anti- 
Slavery Society. It was exactly the thing I wanted — for it is an incontestible 
voucher of everything that I have written against you. I therefore withdrew the 
conclusion of my last letter and reserved it for another. The Report just mentioned, 
emanated from the Press of Andrews & Prentiss, No. 11 Devonshire street, 
Boston, on the 27th of January, 1847, after having been presented to the Society 
convened in Faneuil Hall, on the same date, by the Board of Managers. I regret 
that I cannot give the names of the Board of Managers, as an invaluable legacy to 
posterity. However, I suppose they are to be found in the following list of officers 
— and if not, they will readily be found among the archives of the Society. The 
officers are as follows : 

President — Francis Jackson, Boston. 
Vice Presidents. 

Seth Sprague, Doxbury ; Andrew Robeson, New Bedford ; Nathaniel B. 
Borden, Fall River; Stillman Lotheop, Cambridge; Amos Faenswortht 
Groton ; Adin Ballou, Milford ; Jno. M. Fisk, West Brookfield ; Joshua T 
Everett, Princeton ; Effingham L. Capron, Uxbridge ; Wm. B. Earle, Lei 
cester; Jefferson Church, Springfield; Wm. B. Stone, Gardner; Oliver 
Gardner, Nantucket ; Joseph Southwick, Boston ; Saml. May, Leicester ; 
Harris Cowdrey, Acton ; Nathan Webster, Haverhill ; Geo. Hoyt, Athol ; 
Theodore P. Locke, Westminster ; Jno. C. Gore, Roxbury ; Caroline Wes- 
ton, Hew Bedford; Linas Rhodes, North Marlboro'; Benj. Snow, Fitchburg ; 
Geo. Miles, Westminster ; James N. Buffum, Lynn ; Cyrus Pierce, New- 
ton; Jno. T. Hilton, Cambridgeport ; Thomas T. Stone, Salem; Bourne 
Spooner, Plymouth. 

Corresponding Secretary — Edmund Quincy, Dedham. 

Recording Secretary — Robert F. Wallcut. 

Auditor — Edmund Jackson, Boston. 

Counsellors. 

Wm. Lloyd Garrison; Maria Weston Chapman; Cornelius Bramhall; 
Henry Ingersoll Bowditch ; Eliza Lee Fallen ; Chas. K. Whipple ; Wen- 
dell Phillips; John Rogers; Anne Warren Weston; Chas. Lenox Re- 
mond ; Jno. M. Spear ; Jas. Russell Lowell. 

When it is considered that these are but the officers of the Society — that they 
come from all quarters of the State — that they hold their meetings in her metropo- 
lis—that almost all her public officers act in perfect accordance with the principles 
avowed by them — that every man from Massachusetts supported the Wilmot pro- 
viso without hesitation or scruple — we may consider this Society a very fair expo- 
nent of your principles. It professes to be engaged in a Christian enterprise, be it 
remembered — and to have no object but the emancipation of the poor slave. I have 
told you, with a delicacy widely disproportioned to your deserts, that this is not true. 
That your aim was power — and that the object of Abolitionism was to crush the 
master, not to emancipate the slave. That it was nothing but a political machine, 
designed to overthrow Southern power in the councils of the nation, or to over- 
throw the Government. Thus speaks the Report in its third and fourth sentences : 
" The tyrannic omnipotence of slavery, had been seen and felt fur long years before 



38 LETTER FROM 

it created, by the natural law of moral antagonism, its deadly opposite, in the Mo- 
dern Anti-Slavery Movement, of which this Society was the first organic embodi- 
ment. But the development of the purposes of the Slave Power, and the strides 
with which it has stalked towards its design, have been more undisguised and more 
rapid within the last fifteen years than ever before." 

That which is uppermost in the heart is sure to be first out of the mouth ; and 
the order in which the heart delivers itself, is a pretty sure criterion of its interest 
in the matters delivered. 

The complaints against slave power disposed of, the next thing which engages 
the attention of these pious pilgrims, is the Mexican War, and the Annexation of 
Texas, of which these gmtle Christians speak as follows : 

" Scarcely had Texas been welcomed into the society of these States, and taken 
her place among the legitimate daughters of the Revolution, and the bastard brood 
they had before adopted, when it became apparent, &»c, that her dower of lands 
was not enough to satisfy, but only to stimulate the avarice of our Southern mas- 
ters." Here follows a detail of the events which led to the war, in which Mexico 
is applauded, and the United States abused. The history is brought to the action 
of Congress, which is introduced in these words : " Resolutions were introduced 
and passed almost by acclamation and without discussion, comainingthe double/aZse- 
hood that war existed with Mexico, and that prompt action was necessary," &.c. 
Next come the probable issues of the war. " The parties which have so long 
distracted the internal economy of Mexico, appear to be united in opposition to this 

insulting and infamous invasion of her soil" " What the result of the conflict may 

be, cannot exactly be affirmed ; but we fear that the vastly greater resources of the 
United States for the supply of men and money, will sooner or later extort from 
their weaker neighbor their own terms of peace. This event must be depi-ecated 
by every lover of humanity, of justice, and of freedom. The victories of the Ameri- 
can armies are the triumphs of cruelty, of injustice, and slavery." " Every good 

and humane man, &c, must earnestly hope that success may attend upon that 

Power which is striving to remove from its soil a piratical horde of banditti, whose 
purpose is to establish anew, within its borders, the slavery which it has had the 
consistency and the virtue to exclude from them forever." Here follows a descant 
upon My Lord Wilmot's proviso, which, of course, is approved. " But," it con- 
tinues, " it is not to be believed that the despotic majority, who have it in their 

power to block all the wheels of the government will relax their iron rule in 

a matter thus vital to the security of their own power" f.'. Slavery must, of 

necessity.be triumphant; it is too late to Reform. We have put it out of our 
power. There is no remedy but in Revolution! A revolution beginning like 
all such, in the hearts and minds of men ; but manifested in due lime in the dis- 
ruption of the Union, in the overthrow of our present deceptive Constitution, 
and the establishment of a new government, of which justice and equal rights 
shall be at once the end and means of its existence." Here the Legislature of 
Massachusetts are taken to task for not executing previous threats of that body against 
the government, in case of Annexation — which they consider "a just occasion for 
the Dissolution of the Union." They then fall aboard of Governor Briggs, for 
saying, "that whatever the difference of opinion as to the origin or necessity of 
the war, the Constitutional authorities have declared that war exists'' — and that all 
honorable means should be used to bring it to a speedy and successful termination ; 
and they thus arraign him : " This, it seems, is the idea of patriotism and human- 
ity entertained by the Baptist Deacon of Pittsfield, 8?c." " No matter what may 

be the origin or necessity of a war, provided a profligate government have embroiled 
us in one: humanity plainly dictates to us that we must fight it out !" They, 
therefore, quote with approbation the following resolution adopted by the*Ytu.' Eng- 
land Convention of Abolitionists : 

" Resolved, That at the bar of Liberty and Humanity, we impeach George N. 
Briggs, Sec, as perjured, an his own principles, as a traitor by his own showing — 
as one, before whose guilt the infamy of Arnold, and of the M issauri Compromisers,. 



GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 39 

becomes respectability and decency ; since, under oath to support the Constitution 
of the United States, he calls on the Commonwealth to rally to a war which is 
waged to defend and protect an act (the Annexation of Texas,) which he himself 
has so often declared a ' violation of the Constitution,' " &.c. &c. 

Then follows a tirade of abuse of divers others, good citizens of Massachusetts, who 
could not subscribe to these revolutionary doctrines, which closes with a reference to 
•some of their opposers, as follows: 

"We shall watch with interest what such men can do for the deliverance of 

the State from pro-slavery bondage ; but we believe they will be compelled to come 
to the conclusion at last, that their deliverance is impossible, as long as she remains 
a member of a Slave-holding Confederacy ; and that her real prosperity and true 
honor can only be secured by the blow that shall sever the bond of the ex- 
isting Union." 

The next thing discussed is the triumph of Abolitionism (last year,) in New 
Hampshire, which is ascribed to Annexation. Then New York is peppered for re- 
jecting the black-suffrage clause of her new Constitution; and the Tribune is applaud- 
ed for°having " honorably distinguished itself by its maintenance of the right." 

These matters disposed of, the melancholy rencounter at Richmond is introduced, 
and traced to the Annexation of Texas. — Dr. S , the Abolition Editor of Bal- 
timore, is complimented. — Cassius M. Clay is censured for quitting his Press and 
going into the army, and the National Era of Washington, Edited by Dr. G. Bai- 
ley, is brought under consideration. 

This, it seems, from the Report, is professedly an Abolition Paper, which has 
created some alarms in the city authorities of Georgetown. The Report quotes 
the following paragraph from that paper, to show that they need be under no alarms 
from such an anti-slavery paper as that : " If we thought him (Gen'l. Taylor,) 
in danger, and that volunteers from this section were really needed to save him, 
we should certainly postpone the articles we are now writing. Heaven forbid that 
word or act of ours should have the remotest tendency to jeopard the safety of 
ihat noble officer and his brave army." " When they come to learn this," continues 

the Report " they will not see in him a very dangerous enemy to their peculiar 

institution We are bold to affirm, that a man who could entertain and express such 

feelings towards the slaveholduig leader of our national banditti, engaged in 
our piratical incursion into Mexico for the extension and perpetuation of slavery — that 
such a man, whatever else he may be, is not an abolitionist, and need not be feared, 
and should not be encouraged as such !" 

This brings us to the 31st page of the Report, where the question of gradual eman- 
cipation, with compensation to the owners of slaves, is discussed. Of course this mode 
of emancipation is repudiated upon the ground that the South is fully apprised of all 
th°! evils of Slavery, (which are enumerated,) but maintains it, not for the wealth 
but the power which it seeures to her— and which, of course, she will never give 
up "except by a radical and revolutionary change in our political relations; either 
by a change of the Constitution (which, as matters now stand, is politically and 
morally impossible,) or by a Dissolution of the Union" As there is no hope of a 
change in the present state of things, the Report declares that " Disunion, religious 
and political, is the only remedy— for the distempered and disjointed limes in which 
we live— for the deliverance oftlie slave, and for the enfranchisement of ourselves.'''' 

How my pious sister is going to literate the slave by this oft-repeated remedy of 
"Disunion,'" 1 confess I cannot see. Perhaps Mrs. Vice President Caroline 
Weston, Mrs. Counsellor Maria Weston Chapman, or Mrs. Counsellor Eliza 
Lee Fallen, may enlighten me upon this head if they will. Your plan of abusing 
and terrifying all who take office, into perjury, may accomplish this end if you can 
gel enough of your caste into Congress. They may snatch power by fraud, force 
and false swearing, sufficient to drive us from the Union, and then you may use that 
power in cutting our throats for the benefit of the slave ; but, to my great delight, 
■the Report seems to give up this plan as hopeless, and to contemplate secession on 
jour part as the effectual remedy. In that case, I cannot see how the slave will be 



40 LETTER FROM 

relieved ; but I can see how the country would be relieved, greatly, joyously, glori- 
ously. 

The Report proceeds from this country to England, and immediately its style 
temper and spirit undergoes a visible change : " The Anti-Slavery history of Eng- 
land has been unusually full of various incident during the past year. The forma- 
tion of the Anti-Slavery League, the Evangelical Alliance, the visit of Mr. Garri- 
son, the extensive agitation of the Slavery question by his means, assisted by Mr. 
Thompson, and the American Abolitionists have made the last year of ex- 
traordinary Anti- Slavery animation and interest. We believe that we could 

never boast of a larger and more devoted band ot faithful friends in the Mother 
Country, than we now possess. We have received elegant gifts from a multi- 
tude of other places, (besides London, Bristol, &c.) and are thus put in communica- 
tion with new and efficient friends.' 7 Then comes a list of the distinguished aboli- 
tionists of England who have died during the past year, with suitable compliments. 
Of the deceased Edw'd. S. Abdy, it says : "He wasan abolitionist of the finest 
water. He alone of the English tourists in America was able to withstand the in- 
fluence of our pro-slavery air He separated himself from the Anti-Corn Law 

League when it sent complimentary gifts to Mr. McDuffie and Mr. Calhoun, 
and thus recognised 'soul drivers, and negro jobbers — the enemies of personal 
freedom — as the friends of commercial freedom.' " 

Scotland is next introduced : " The conflict between the abolitionists of Scotland 
and the Free Church, in the matter of blood-money, has been carried on with even 
more vigor during the past year than ever before. The haters of Slavery and lov- 
ers of pure Christianity have not had their sense of the comfort that was given to 
the one, and the injury that was done to the other, by the reception of the price of 
' slaves and the souls of men' into the treasury of the seceding Kirk, at all dimin- 
ished by the experience of another year." 

Here follows a flattering account of the labors of Abolition Missionaries to Eng- 
land. Then comes Ireland. " The Irish contributions to the Bazaar, like those we 
have just enumerated, were of increased amount in quantity, elegance and value. 
We accept this annual increase of the tribute paid to the Image of God in chains, 
whose dungeon is this broad land, as a grateful evidence of an increasing and spread- 
ing sympathy with universal Humanity." 

A word to thee, Ireland, in passing. We do not forget that you are far away from 
us, and that you are ignorant of the true state of things in this country ; and there- 
fore we rather admire than censure your liberality to an enterprize which we know 
you believe to be philanthropic. It fills my soul with noble emotions, and my eyes 
with the best tears they ever shed, when I see your national generosity unextin- 
guished by famine, and your free hand stretched across the broad Atlantic to relieve 
those whom you think in greater distress than yourself, while your own children 
perish by hundreds at your doors. But, oh God, what shall I say of that horde of 
Monsters who, in a land overflowing with plenty, can seize these last drainings of 
your noble soul, and spend them in fitting out a band of noisy vagrants to stir dis- 
cord between the two countries, desolate this Eden of peace, and to persuade your 
famishing children to die, rather than eat the bread which our charity places in 
their hands? In recording these things, I feel that I am bidding a long farewell to 
the honor of my country — that the pride which I used to feel at being called an 
American is humbled forever — and that I would almost change places with Ireland, 
to change names with her. Land of our champion, Burke, ami mother of some of 
our noblest foster-children, we excuse thee. Reject our charities if you will; but 
we will offer them as long as we see thee in distress, and no harsh words which 
your intemperate sons may give us in return, shall deaden our sympathies for you, 
silence our prayers in your behalf, or tear you from the must consecrated seat in our 
affections. We know you to be deceived. But I never can excuse that nest of artful 
spiders that caught you in their web, and then sucked your dying blood. I did not 
suppose that even Abolitionism could go thus far. It is to be hoped that it can go. 
no farther. After combining all that is despicable in man, with all that is- shocking 



GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 41 

in the hyena, may we not hope that it has reached its maximum in crime, and that 
henceforward its course will be downward, downward, downward, until, far below 
the stoop of decent society, it is pointed to in warning of malcontents, ingrates, tra- 
ducers, demagogues, anarchists, schismatics, inquisitors, hypocrites, traitors, vam - 

mres i L .1 am not half through the Report, but I cannot return to it now. 

V GEORGIA. 



LETTER VIII. 



Madam. 

I left the Report at the introduction of Ireland. The next thing in order 
is a lono- account of Mr. Garrison's Mission to Great Britain, with his wonderful 
works there. The Evangelical Alliance, comes next ; which is handled with- 
out gloves, for allowing certain Slaveholding Ministers to take seats with the body. 
Their feelings soon began to be lacerated by Anti-Slavery movements, which they 
bore with such meekness as to call from Sir Cullen E. Smith a high compliment ; 
and he expressed "his admiration of the grace of God in enabling them to listen to 
what must cut them to the heart's core, with such Christian meekness." Of this re- 
mark, these pious Abolitionists speak thus : " Whether the grace of God was ex- 
hausted, or whether the silence of" the American brethren was only owing to their not 
having had a chance to speak, we cannot affirm." They proceed : "An amend- 
ment "was moved by the Rev. Jno. Nelson, peremptorily excluding slaveholders. 
It was, however, rejected." "VERILY, THEY ARE ALL ONE BRO- 
THERHOOD OF THIEVES I" (The last words printed as they are in the Re- 
port.) The Anti-Slavery League, is then brought upon the carpet: " Its ob- 
ject is to act for the abolition of Slavery in every land ; but with special reference to 
the United States, in concert with uncompromising Abolitionists, who compose the 

American Anti-Slavery Society." " There exists a large amount of Anti- Slavery 

feeling, and a warm sympathy with the American Society in Us principles and 
measures throughout Great Britain and Ireland ; but there has been wanting, hither- 
to, a fitting medium through which this feeling and this sympathy could make them- 
selves heard and felt. This has now been provided, and we cannot doubt that the 
benefits of intelligent co-operation will soon be perceived in the aspect and the pro- 
gress of the cause." " A bond of Union has been created between the true Aboli- 
tionist of the Old World, whose links extend across the Atlantic and unite them in 
a tangible tie of brotherhood with the New. Facilities of spreading the knowledge 
of the condition and the necessities of the cause in this country will be greatly in- 
creased, &c, &c." " One of the chief advantages which we anticipate from it is 

the increased opportunities it will give for creating and expressing a yet stronger ab- 
horrence of American Slavery in the British Islands than that which now exists. 

there." " Let the general mind of England become thoroughly possessed of the 

facts of American Slavery, and obey the impidses which such facts must create in 
every generous bosom, and the hand of destiny will have written the words of doom 
upon the walls of our Babylon. When public sentiment is such in the British Isl- 
ands that no slaveholder shall be received into any pulpit or at any communion 

table at court, in a public capacity the church the dinner table the 

circle of fire which has already been kindled round the scorpion, will grow hotter and 
hotter and close nearer and nearer, until it will be compelled to bury its sting in its 
own brain, and rid the world by a blessed suicide of its monstrous existence. It is 
to promote this state of public feeling and to direct it in the wisest manner that the 
League has been instituted." 

This, Madam, is just what I have said was your project ; though I did not know- 
that it had been so publicly avowed. Let me just remind you, that such fires as 



42 LETTER FROM 

these, kindled by the slaves of kings, and the scullions of slaves, will only warm the 
scorpion into life, vigor, and activity, and give it the lustre upon earth, that the con- 
queror of Orion, the boaster, bears in the heavens. It is for such chamberers as you 
are, to feel themselves honored by being admitted to the presence of Royalty ; and 
to drop courtesies for the crumbs of favor that she may fling to you. We are made 
of very different material. Go, form your foreign alliances, and get every king of 
every land, and every bishop of every church, to unite in a sentence of excommuni- 
cation upon us; and if you ever find that it relaxes one muscle of one cheek at the 
South — excites one blush, or elicits one sigh — pronounce us recreants to our birth- 
right, and traitors to Republicanism. Here is a beautiful sentiment, is it not ? to be 
dropped from the sons of Hancock, in the city which he immortalized : " We can 
only promise, on the behalf of the American Abolitionists, that we will do our best 
to deserve the confidence and co-operation of those on the other side of the Atlantic, 
by a strenuous continuance of our own agitation." 

In the next place we are introduced to The American Anti-Slavery Society, 
in New York, at which President Garrison " took the ground that it was the duty 
of all those whom he addressed, to refuse to have anything to do with a war waged 
by Slavery upon a nation whose chief crime was that she had abolished Slavery." 
'f The Society re-affirmed its testimonies of former years as to the pro-slavery char- 
acter of 1 he Third Political Party, and of the Colonization Society expressed its 

sense of the value of the services of our American friends in Great Britain, and their 
zealous coadjutors, and its opinions on various matters of National and Local Poli- 
tics connected with Slavery and adjourned." 

Then comes an account of the New England Convention of Abolitionists, 

This was the Convention which passed the resolution concerning Governor 
Briggs, already mentioned ; and this, with another quoted below, seems to have 
been about all they did. Alderman Preston, it seems, had at that time firmness 
enough to tell these traitors, after three days moral rioting, that they could no longer 
have the Hall (Fanuel) for their meetings. They took him to task next day, 
through the press, and concluded their address as follows : 

" We would ask our fellow citizens, whether he would have dared thus to insult 
any political party, or any other philanthropic movement'?" 

These philanthropists, be it remembered, had just passed a resolution pronouncing 
the Governor of the State a perjured villain ; and another introduced by Wm. H. 
Channing " denying the existence of any lawful Government of the United States, 
of any Union, of any obligation of allegiance or countenance to either, and pledging 
themselves togive no aid or support to the Mexican war, and to do all in our pow- 
er to form a New Union and a New Constitution." This resolution was 
sustained, amidst mingled cheers and hisses, by Mr. Channing, the Rev. Theo- 
dore Parker, Mr. Redmond, and others, and enthusiastically adopted." Was it 
not cruel in the Alderman to deny these gentle spirits the privileges that he allowed 
to political parties ? 

Next comes an account of ". Northern Prisoners at the South." It opens 

with the intelligence that " the number of victims to slave-holding vengeance 

has been diminished since the last report." Here they had but small capital, and of 
course they made the most of Torrey's case. Mr. Burr, a prisoner in Missouri, 
had been discharged, and the Parkersburgh case had been decided by a Virginia 
Court in favor of Ohio. It is really a source of pride and exultation in me to see 
the Southern Magistracy holding the scales of justice with a steady hand in such a 
case, while Abolition Governors, Judges, and Congressmen, in like cases, forget all 
the obligations of justice, patriotism, and duty, with the most reckless indifference. 

The next subject discussed is the " Anti-Slavery Press." They speak in high 
terms of The Liberator, the National Anti-Slavery Standard published in New York, 
The Pennsylvania Freeman, and the Anti-Slavery Bugle published in the 
West, by Mr. and Mrs. Jones. "The West," continues the Report, ". has been 
again the scene of extensive agitation, under the direction of Samuel Brooke. 
We have no room for particulars we can only say that they are in the highest de- 
gree gratifying and encouraging." 



GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 4 a 

Anti- Slavery Fairs come next in order, which are declared to be increasing 
in number and contributions. Then, 

Kidnapping at the North. Under this head, we have an account of a " slave 
who had secreted himself on board the brig Ottoman, at New Orleans, and was not 
discovered until she had put to sea. The Captain, James W. Hannum, kept him 
in custody on board the ship, and afterwards landed him on Spectacle Island, for 
the purpose of returning him to New Orleans." The slave escaped, but was re- 
taken and sent back to the owner. " As soon as it was known that there was such a 
slave in our waters, a writ of liabcas cm-pus was granted by Judge Hubbard, of the 
Supreme Court, and a warrant issued to arrest Hannum on the charge of kidnap- 
ping," but he was gone. 

I stop here to make a remark or two before I record what follows. The writ of 
habeas corpus must have been granted on the affidavit of some one who swore that 
the slave was in illegal custody, at least ; and if a ivarrant was issued, as we shall 
presently see it was, some person must have sworn that Hannum had kidnapped 
the slave. But the slave obtruded himself on board the vessel which Hannum com- 
manded, and the Constitution of the United States required that the fugitive should 
be delivered to his master, by the constituted authorities of the State of Massachu- 
setts. What was done? The Report tells us: "But though it was too late to 
save the slave, it was not too late for Boston to express its sense of this outrage on 
the laws of Humanity, of Massachusetts, and of God. Accordingly a public meeting 
was called to meet in Fanuel Hall, on the 17th of September, to utter its voice in 
this behalf. The Hall was crowded to its remotest nook and corner. Never did 
such < a sea of upturned faces' fill that vast Hall before. JOHN QUINCY AD- 
AMS (!) took the Chair, amid deafening acclamations, and expressed his happiness 
in thus bearing his personal testimony in a case of personal liberty. Dr. S. G. 
Howe stated the case, the Hon. Stephen C. Phillips spoke Charles Sum- 
ner, Esq., Wendell Phillips, George B. Emerson, Esq., Hon. Charles F. 
Adams, Rev. Theodore Parker, and Rev. Thomas T. Stone, filled up the rest 
of the evening. The enthusiasm ivas immense, and was never greater than when 
Wendell Phillips pointed out to the meeting its inconsistency in sustaining 
a Constitution of Government, by virtue of which a scrap of paper with the 
name of the owner of the slave, in Hannum's and Pearson's possession" (Pearson 
was the owner of the vessel,) " would have made the act a legal one ; and when he 
indicated DISSOLUTION" (I print it as it is,) " as the only rightful and efficient 
remedy for these evils. If a vote could have been taken at that moment on the 
question of DISUNION, w r e are convinced that it would have been carried by accla- 
mation. Resolutions branding Pearson with the ignominy he deserved, expressing 
a determination that no more illegal seizures should be made, and appointing a Vigi- 
lance Committee of Forty to see to it that there were not, were passed unanimously 

signal proof of the change in public sentiment since the Anti-Slavery movement 

which caused it first began." Thus were Pearson and Hannum treated by the cit- 
izens of Boston ; and we afterwards learn that indictments were actually prefered 
against them, for the Grand Juries that refused to find true bills against them are 
severely censured. 

Here, then, we have the Ex-President of the United States, a number of distin 
guished Jurists and Statesmen, divers Clergymen, and throngs of Citizens, giving 
countenance to two bold oaths, (to say the least of them,) a gross violation of the 
Constitution, branding with infamy men who obeyed the laws of the land, enthusi- 
astically applauding revolutionary sentiments, and ripe to vote for a disruption of the 
Government. The Ex-President returns thanks for the honor of presiding at such a 
meeting! I did not know of this when, in a former letter, I complimented his 
goodness of heart : — " Whoso keepeth the law" (says Solomon) " is a wise son ; 
but he that is a companion of riotous men, shameth his father." I hope we shall hear 
no more of the Abolitionists being a little insignificant band, unworthy of notice. 
The " law" of "Massachusetts," which Hannum and Pearson were considered as 
outraging, trie reader will be pleased to remember, is a law of that State, passed to 



44 LETTER FROM 

nullify the clause of the Constitution which provides for the delivering up of fugi- 
tive slaves. When South Carolina passed a law to defeat the operation of the tariff 
acts in her territory — acts which she believed to be unconstitutional — the whole Union 
was arrayed against her ; and Massachusetts, as we have seen, stept forward to 
clothe the President with extraordinary powers, in order to reduce her to submission ; 
but when Massachusetts herself passes a law to defeat the operation of an unques- 
tionable clause of the Constitution, not a word is said about it ! The Report pio- 
ceeds : 

" A case similar to this, but more fortunate in its termination, occurred not long 

before in New York . Although the Mayor and all the police of the city were at 

the disposal of the kidnapper yet Judge Edmonds, did himself and the Bench 

honor by judging justly, and deciding that there was no authority by which the 
slave could be deprived of his liberty." So it seems that Judge Edmonds' legal 
learning has not yet reached the 3d paragraph, 2d Sec, IV Art. of the Constitution, 
which he swore to support when he took his commission. 

We have now advanced seven and thirty pages farther in the Report, and no plan 
yet proposed to relieve the poor slave of the South. 

" The Caste Schools" come next in order. The Report regrets that the ne- 
gro and white children are kept in seperate Schools, but sees the dawn of better 
times. 

"The Political Parties." — The objection to them is thus expressed : "They 
are all equally ready to swear to support the Constitution, and if true to their oath, to 
do the work which the Constitution, as explained by its authentic expounders, re- 
quires of those supporting it" . " It is still the heaviest of the chains that bind 

the slave to his despair ; the iron which enters into our own souls who have consent- 
ed to hold it." 

" The Church, (p. 72) under this head (the last but three) the Churches are 
arraigned for not warring against the Constitution and the Government, under the 
names of the " Bulwark of Slavery,'" and the " American Bastille. ,, The 
Churches, " almost every one of them, expands its doors to welcome the pious rob- 
ber of the poor — and scarcely any but rejoice to have the bread of life broken unto 
them by reverend men-stealers, with their hands dripping with their brother's blood. 
The wisdom of the action of the Southern Methodist Episcopal Churches, in dis- 
solving the jurisdiction of the Southern and Southwestern Conferences, and erecting 
them into a separate Ecclesiastical Connection, styled the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, has been justified by the result. The Southern Church, has gained 
everything," (except its property) " and lost nothing. It has banished the impor- 
tunate spirit of Abolitionism from its Great Councils, and at the same time has 
lost none of its ecclesiastical brotherhood with the Northern Churches." Here 
the Baltimore Conference is taken to task, for disclaiming fellowship with Aboli- 
tionists, and determining not to hold connection with any ecclesiastical body which 
shall make non-slaveholding a condition of membership in the Church. After 
speaking of the support which that Conference has received from some other Con- 
ferences and organs North ; the Report proceeds in the following reverential strain 
— "Thus the guilt of slaveholding is piously transferred from the shoulders of * 
*****&, q * ( t h e g reat Methodist Slave-traders) and their compeers, 
to those of the Almighty which are supposed to be strong enough to bear it." 
Shocking ! 

The New School Presbyterians and the Methodist Protestants, are then brought to 
account for a like sin. But amidst these discouragements, a ray of light breaks in 

upon them: "Three hundred and three Universalist Ministers have protested 

against the system of American Slavery, as utterly wrong, and confess their obliga- 
tion to use all justifiable means to promote its abolition." And an encouraging ad- 
dress has appeared from the Irish Unitarian Christian Society to their Christian 
brethren of America, in which they protest against slavery. A lash or two upon 

* The names are given in the Report; but they are not Methodists. 



GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 45 

the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and a disclaimer of 
any hostility to the Church of Christ, closes the matter under this head. 

" Our Spirit." — " The bad spirit of the Abolitionists has always been a main 
ground of complaint against them. It has from the beginning been made the excuse 
of the cowardly and time-serving, for not joining our ranks, or doing their duty out 

of-them We are content that men should say what they like of our spirit, so 

that they cannot well deny our works." 

" Our Philosophy." — " Our Philosophy is not one hard to understand, though 
it may be difficult to receive. It is simply the philosophy of personal separation 

from an evil which we wish to destroy Under the guidance of this philosophy, 

we have examined the institutions, civil and ecclesiastical, in the midst of wiiich we 
live, where we have found the sanctity or security of slavery an essential part of 
them, &c. Seeing as we did in the Constitution of the United States, the su- 
preme law of the land an imperative rule of action which made Slavery a 

National Institution which pledged the physical force of the whole nation for the 

protection of Slavery against a righteous, servile Revolution," (! !) "in the 
presence of such a Constitution, we plainly saw that there was no alternative for 
men who reverenced the obligation of promises, and the sanctity of oaths on the one 
hand, and who hated Slavery on the other— but in obedience or REVOLUTION. 
We have made our election. We have renounced our allegiance to a government 
which we could not support without sustaining slavery. And believing the existing 
Constitution and the present union of these States, incompatible with the Abolition 
of Slavery, we have devoted ourselves to the abrogation of the one, and to the dis- 
solution of the other, in order that they may be replaced by a purer Constitution, &c." 

" Our Method."—" Our Method is identical with our Philosophy. The one 

is the other reduced to practice it consist in short, in the use of every means in 

our power to make this Constitution and this Union, of which it is the bond, infa- 
mous and abhorred in the eyes of the people, and of the nations of the world — that 
it may vanish — and give way to a Republic which shall, indeed, be the Model instead 
of the warning of the world we see, already, the effect of our agitation in the al- 
tered tone of feeling and speech, as to the sacredness of the Constitution and the 
Union. We have disenchanted the mind of the people in a good measure, as to the 
Divinity of their parchment idol. We have taught men to calculate the value of 
the Union. The idea that loyalty and allegiance are its due, is fast becoming ridi- 
culous and contemptible— multitudes who walk not with us, have been taught by 
their own experience to curse the Constitution and the Union, as a delusion and a 
snare," Sec, &c. 

Thus ends a Report of eighty-six pages. The funds of this magnificent institu- 
tion consist of $5,852,01. Of which $3,262,11 were received from proceeds of the 
Massachusetts Annual Fair ; 447,24 from the Rural Fair at Dedham ; $173,95 
from office rent ; $298,66 balance in hand from last year ; and $1670,25, donations 
from all quarters — Ireland, I suppose, included. So that it seems this patriotic band 
are not likely to bankrupt themselves by their liberality to their noble enterprise. 
Of these funds $1391,78 are paid to agents; $200 to the Liberator ; $2,800 to the 
American Anti-Slavery Society; and the rest for rent of meeting-places, printing, 
paper, &.c. When we see how the funds are raised, we can account lor the Lady 
Vice Presidents and Counsellors. Of the heroes of the Revolution, to whose me- 
mory they have erected a monument, they hold this language ; " We cannot see 

the precise course of events -they must be all moulded and guided by Fate, 

which rules over this nation, through the crimes of our Fathers and our own." 

" We are constrained to believe there is no deliverance for the people of the 

Free States from the yoke their Fathers imposed, and they have worn so long, except 

by a radical and revolutionary change in our political relations." The dominion of 

Slave Power is so fastened upon us by the iceak and wicked compact, which our 
fathers made with it, &c." 

So much for the Report : what did the Society ? 

They Resolved, " That Gov. Briggs was a narrow-minded or willing tool of a 



46 LETTERS FROM 

corrupt faction — not only utterly unequal to his place and the occasion, but perjured 

by his own showing, and traitor to his own principles" "That in this so called 

Mexican war, they can see nothing but a foray of pirates and kidnappers ; and that 

the nation which wages it deserves the deep curse of every lover of right and 

human liberty" "That they hail with thankfulness the abiding influence 

of — —Garrison; and rejoice to take by the hand their beloved pioneer Thomas 
Clarkson," (an Englishman,) " and to hear from his lips the assurance of his 
deep interest in, and cordial approbation of our pledged purpose to seek for a Dissolu- 
tion of this Union, as the most effectual method of striking off the fetters of the 

slave" " That they cordially approve of the action of the Board of Managers 

of the society in instituting a movement for the purpose of asking the Legislature 
of the State to call a convention of the People to take measures for a peaceful 
secession from the Union," (God speed ye in that ; and brand any State that ob- 
jects to it, with a mark of infamy as black as your own,) " and they pledge them- 
selves to make demand loud, &c. — and to repeat it, until it shall be heard and obey- 
ed." (So printed in the Report.) " That the working classes of the North 

— who stand aloof from the Anti-Slavery enterprise, will be guilty of manufacturing 

yokes for the necks and fetters for the limbs of the Southern slave population" 

" That they rejoice that the working men of the Old World — are deeply interested 

in the Anti-Slavery movement in England. Seeing the existence of slavery in 

this boasted Republic is the mightiest obstacle to their own deliverance from oppres- 
sion and bondage" " That they cannot view with approbation the proposal of 

some devoted friends of the Slave, to test the number of the friends of Disunion, 

by urging them to repair to the ballot box and deposite their votes for such men as 
will never take the oath to support the Constitution of the United States," as this 
method would be " liable to render less distinct, emphatic and intelligible, our pro- 
test against the Government of the United States" " That each town in the 

Commonwealth be urged to assemble immediately, and raise funds for the enter- 
prise" " That all who participate in this war, or who give it any countenance, 

are enemies to the country and traitors to liberty and the rights of man"- " That 

they pledge for New England to Ohio, not only their hearty sympathy, but their 
most efficient aid and support, in covering with Anti-Slavery machinery the vast 
field she has in charge." 

These and many other resolutions in the same spirit, were offered and discussed 
— not one of which can I discover was rejected, though I cannot find where the 
vote was taken upon some of them. Most of them were adopted. 

Thus ends a meeting which continued for three days in peaceable session in the 
Town Hall of Boston. I have given the subjects, and all the subjects, which en- 
gaged its attention, with some of its views on each. We learn from it that its aim 
is to overthrow the government of the country ; and the instruments to be used for 
this purpose are anti-slavery associations in England, the West Indies, and the 
Free States. That these associations are actually formed and in secret communi- 
cation with each other — interchanging missionaries and inviting counsels and pecu- 
niary resources. That the Englishman recommends agitation in this country as the 
most efficient means for destroying the government, and the American thanks him 
for his advice, and promises to follow it strictly ; and in token of its wisdom they 
tell him and the world that they have already wrought a magic change in popular 
opinion, (and this is certainly true, as to popular opinion North of the Potomac,) and 
disenchanted the mind of the people as to the divinity of their parchment idol. 
That they have taught men to calculate the value of the Union — That they intend 
to use every means in their power to render the United States Government infamous. 
When we examine their works we find that they are in strict accordance with these 
principles. Not a plan do they propose or have they ever proposed, to emancipate 
the slave : all their machinery is directed towards the slave-holder, the Union, 
and the sepulchres of their fathers. Falsehood, the most unblushing, is uttered, 
and the Magistrate bows assent to it, the Judge puts his seal to it, and the Priest 
anoints it. The whole vocabulary of Billingsgate is exhausted upon the Slave- 



GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 47 

holder, and mingled with the litual of Divine Service, without compunction and 
even without remorse. The war in which we are engaged is pronounced a war of 
Slavery, when surely Slavery had no more to do with it than freedom ; and it is 
ascribed to the malignity of the South, because Mexico emancipated her slaves — an 
idea perfectly original with these Christians. The intruder upon our peace, is 
pronounced a martyr, and the perjured villain, a hero. A Servile Revolution is 
pronounced " righteous," and the government is cursed because it prevents it. 
With one hand in the pocket of starving Ireland, and the other in their daughter's 
ridicules, and six buttons on their own pockets, they call on the world for large con- 
tributions to their noble enterprise. These things are not done in a corner. There 
is a logic in the place and the manner in which they are done, which is as convinc- 
ing as demonstration, that their spirit overspreads the whole State. The con- 
clusion is confirmed by observation. Abolitionism, as we have seen it, is seen in 
some or all of its features in almost all her movements, civil and ecclesiastical. 
And would to God that it stopped here. But, alas ! it has extended its dominion 
to all the free States, and wherever it gets foothold, we find the same daring, the 
same desperation, the same contempt of oaths, the same inroads upon the Consti- 
tution, which it here evinces. In the Cathedral and the Capitol, it is one and the 
same thing. To comment upon these proceedings in decent language, would be un- 
becoming my subject. To comment upon them in any other, would be unbecoming 

GEORGIA. 

Note. — " In Georgia's second Letter to the Southern States, she apologizes for as- 
cribing the principles of this Society to the State of Massachusetts, upon the ground that 
they are plainly visible in all the movements of the State, though not as distinctly avow- 
ed by her, as by the Society. The following resolutions which have passed the Legis- 
lature of Massachusetts since these letters were written, show that Gegrcia was not mis- 
taken in supposing the State and the Society were one in principle : 

RESOLVES. 

CONCERNING THE MEXICAN WAR AND THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY. 

Resolved, That the present war with Mexico has its primary origin in the unconstitu- 
tional annexation to the United States of the foreign State of Texas, while the same was 
still at war with Mexico ; that it was unconstitutionally commenced by the order of the 
President to General Taylor, to take military possession of territory in dispute be- 
tween the United States and Mexico, and in the occupation of Mexico ; and that it is 
now waged ingloriously — by a powerful nation against a weak neighbor — unnecessari- 
ly and without just cause, at immense cost of treasure and life, for the dismemberment 
of Mexico, and for the conquest of a portion of her territory, from which slavery has 
already been excluded, with the triple object of extending slavery, of strengthening the 
'• Slave Power," and of obtaining the control of the Free States, under the Constitu- 
tion of the United States. 

Resolved. Thatsucha war of conquest, so hateful in its objects, so wanton, unjust and 
unconstitutional in its origin and character, must be regarded as a war against freedom, 
against humanity, against justice, against the Union, against the Constitution, and against 
the Free States; and that a regard for the interests and the highest honor of the coun- 
try, not less than the impulses of Christian duty, should arouse all good citfzens to join 
in efforts to arrest this gigantic crime, by witholding supplies, or other voluntary contri- 
butions, for its further prosecution, by calling for the withdrawal of our army within the 
established limits of the United States, and, in every just way, aiding the country to retrea t 
from the disgraceful position of aggression which it now occupies towards a weak, dis- 
tracted neighbor, and sister republic. 

Resolved, That our attention is directed anew to the wrong and " enormity" of 
slavery, and to the tyranny and usurpation of the ' ' Slave Power," as displayed in the 
history of our country, particularly in the annexation of Texas, and the present war 
with Mexico; and that we are impressed with the unalterable conviction, that a regard 
for the fair fame of our country, for the principles of morals, and for that righteousness 
which exalteth a nation, sanctions and requires all constitutional efforts for the aboli- 
tion of slavery within trie limits of the United States, while loyalty to the constitution, 
and a just self-defence, make it specially incumbent on the people of the fr^e State* to 
co-operate in strenuous exertions to restrain and overthrow the " Slave power." 



48 LETTERS FROM 

Resolved, That the annexation of territory with a Mexican population upon it, is 
highly inconsistant with the well-being of the Union. 

" Mr. Heyden, of Boston, offered resolves of thanks to General Taylor and his offi- 
cers, and even for their gallant conduct, which, after much wrangling, passed the House 
by a vote of 121 to 71. But they were rejected by the Senate ! By the exertions of 
the patriotic and high-minded Caleb Cashing, a Regiment was raised in Massachusetts 
for the Mexican war ; (the first, we believe, that that State ever sent forth from her own 
borders to meet the enemies of her country) and she refused to grant it the temporary 
supplies needful, before it could be mustered into the service. If she feels herself dis- 
honored by her connexion with the Union ; how should all the other States feel 1" 



LETTER IX. 



Madam, 

Our characters are before the world. Impartial history never can materially 
change my outline of them. Upon a comparison of them— (and they may be taken 
for pretty fair representatives of the North and South — of the Free and Slave 
States) — the Philosophy of History will have to be remodelled. Had M. Comte 
lived among us, he would doubtless have anticipated her in this department of her 
labors ; and I sincerely regret that he has not lived among us, because his works 
will live to instruct future generations, while mine will die as they leave the Press. 
Never was the world more deceived, than it has been in regard to the influences of 
Slavery in this country. When the writer just mentioned stated that it was impos- 
sible for an hereditary nobility to exist for any length of time, because the race 
would run out, and that poverty, however abject, never would arrest the increasing 
population of the indigent, I was startled. The doctrine seemed to me alike hostile 
to the teachings of sound philosophy, and the lessons of experience. Yet it is as 
certainly true, as any doctrine can be, that is based upon history. Nothing would 
he more easy than to reason it down, as Lardner did the practicability of crossing 
the Atlantic by steam ; but there stands the/act, impregnable in both cases. So is 
it with regard to Slavery. We all revolt at it— we can fill volumes with unan- 
swerable arguments to prove its baneful influences upon Government, Religion, 
Wealth, social and individual happiness ; but when we turn our eyes from the domain 
of reason to the stern reality of things as they exist around us, we find that nineteen- 
twentieths of these arguments are opposed to the evidence of our senses. "How," 
inquires Philosophy, "can a people, bom and raised to command, ever be brought 
to obey ? They will ever be impatient of government, restless under authority, and 
ripe for revolt at the smallest provocation." But how is the fact? You are the 
child of Puritanism, I of Commercial Adventure. The principle could not be tested 
by stronger cases. Does our history confirm it? Very far from it. I never raised 
a finger against the Government in my life. The only time that I ever assumed a 
menacing attitude to it, was when, under a solemn compact to extinguish the Indian 
title to lands within my borders, the Government made a treaty to this effect, and 
then, under the guidance of your John, was about to abrogate it. I then said I would 
act upon the treaty, and if he could prevent me from so doing he might do it. That 
compact was left unexecuted, until millions upon millions of other lands were bought 
from the Indians, settled, erected, into Territories, and actually admitted into the 
Union as new States. On the other hand, you,who have actually drawn five dol- 
lars from the Government where I have drawn one, while I have put five into the 
common Treasury where you have put one — you, who have been pampered by it, 
and favored by it, and indulged by it, more than any State in the Union — have ever 
been in hostility to it, and at times in open revolt against its authority. I bore for 
sixteen years a course of policy which I then believed was ruining me just to fatten 
you, without lifting an arm against it; while you could not have your commerce 



GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 49 

checked by it for a year or two without plotting its destruction. Your power has 
always been much greater in the Councils of the Nation than mine ; and yet, to de- 
prive me of the little that I have, you are moving- Heaven and earth, covering your- 
self with infamy, and openly laying the train which is to blow up the Union. You 
have been at this work confessedly for sixteen years ; and yet I am now making the 
first grave appeal to the world, in my behalf, that ever has been made. Look at the 
power which the Free States possess, compared with the Slave States : and then 
look at their deportment towards the Government : and say, what becomes of the oft- 
repeated charge of Southern insubordination. 

" Slavery is hostile to a pure religion." That you should think so, with your 
notions of religion, is not strange ; but it is exceedingly strange that anybody else 
should think so. If it be true, as you teach us, that a Slaveholder cannot be a Chris- 
tian — that Slavery is per se a damning sin, involving a breach of nine precepts of the 
Decalogue, why then there is little or no religion in the Slave States. But as we 
happen to know, upon quite as high authority as yours, that Abraham, Isaac and 
Jacob, who were Slaveholders, are all safely housed in Heaven, we are inclined to 
believe that you are mistaken, and that we have quite as pure a religion, and quite 
as much of it at the South, as you have at the North. This is a subject upon which 
I fear to do myself justice, lest I be led into a spirit of boasting for that which none 
of us can have, except through the boundless mercy and goodness of God ; but let 
any candid man come and dwell with us and try us by all the tests of Bible-piety, 
and do the same in the Free States, and if he will say that he finds m we of the im- 
ao-e of Christ among you than he finds among us, I will admit that Slavery is hostile 
to a pure religion. But believe me, until I find more candor, more justice, more 
meekness, more temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, charity, peace, and good 
order, than I have yet found among you, I must fling that doctrine among the rubbish 
of a used-up philosophy. 

" Slavery is fatal to mental culture." With not half your white population, and 
young enough to be your grand-child, I have more Colleges than you have, and as 
many students in them, though neither of them has near as many as your Harvard. 
I have fewer schools of course, because I have but little more than half your white 
population. I have made larger appropriations for educational purposes than you 
have ever made, (not counting taxation for these purposes on either side) and it is 
only because they were made before the time, that they have not been more profit- 
able. Had we now the immense sums which we expended in splendid schemes of 
education, when we had no children to educate, Georgia would soon eclipse you in 
mental culture. As to the actual exhibitions of mental training, where the sons 
of the two sections have come in conflict, (as good a test as I can find) they seem to 
me to furnish you no cause for boasting. Mr. Dix recently gave the Senate of the 
United States a very luminous exposition of this text — but I confess that in looking 
into that body, I could not find anything to suggest, much less to justify such a dis- 
quisition. Nor can I fix upon the time since the foundation of the Government, when 
it would have been more appropriate to the place and the company. Of one thing, 
however, I am certain, and it is this ; that there is a pride of character about the 
Southern Senators that will stimulate them, under such lectures, if just, to the se- 
verest exertion, in order to bring themselves up to a level with their more intellect- 
ual associates of the North— and that humbled under a sense of their inferiority, they 
will come home and open their hearts and their hands to the rising generation, in or- 
der to redeem them from similar mortification. As it is in point to my subject, 1 
will add, that if we happen to get a Senator of note, we do not deify him, nor pen 
sion him.* 

Turning from the Senate to the other House, to the Pulpit and the Bar, I can find 
no better ground for this opinion ; the due allowances being made for numbers. 

* It may be well to say, for the instruction of distant readers, that one of the Senators 
of Massachusetts is called " the god-like," and the citizens of that State have raised a 
fund of $100,000, in order to euable him to remain in the Senate. 



50 LETTER FROM 

" Slavery is adverse to Internal Improvements." I have greater length of Rail 
Road than any State in the Union, and as good as any in the Union. I have spent 
more money on my roads and rivers than any State in the Union — and though the 
expenditure has resulted in little or no profit, the fault was in my workmen not in 
me ; nor in Slavery. In these matters I have received less help from the General 
Government than any in the Union of half my age. At least this is my best convic- 
tion, without taking the trouble to examine into the expenditures and helps of the 
other States — and not without having looked into these matters in time past. Turn- 
pikes I have not had hitherto, because my population was too sparse to make it the 
interest of Companies to build them, and 1 have not now, because my rail roads 
would supplant them. 

" Slavery is prejudicial to productive industry." For many years, when your 
white population doubled mine, the annual produce of my labor was greater than 
yours, and even now, so far as our labor is left untouched by the Government, I 
beat you. Your manufactures have brought you up handsomely, and well they might 
under a system of legislation which forced down my productions and forced up 
yours. The census of 1840 makes a grand disclosure, to wit : that the value of 
your manufactures, that year, was sixteen-seventeenths of the whole amount of capi- 
tal that you had been investing in Factories for four and twenty years. In the same 
year the value of my productions were reduced to a price that would hardly pay two 
per cent upon the expenses of them. You have had another advantage of me. For 
many years past, from a half to three-fourths of the exports of the country were of 
So thern productions. In exchange for these exports come all the imports. Upon 
the. ) imports the government has levied upwards of seven hundred millions of du- 
ties, and in disbursing these immense sums she has given to you more than six dol- 
lars to my one. Now, if you could not prosper far beyond me with these helps, you 
deserve to perish ; if you cannot now be satisfied to let us all work as we please, 
and trade where we please, you ought to be drummed out of the Union. And yet 
you are not; one end, if not the great end, of your Abolition movement is to get our 
foreign commerce saddled again with a paralizing tariff". What the world will think 
of you I cannot tell — what those must think of themselves who make common 
cause with you, is more difficult to tell. You are " disenchanting the minds of the 
people as to the divinity of their parchment idol" — all the charms of Heaven and 
earth cannot disenchant you, as to the divinity of your mammon idol. Your creed 
consists of but two articles : " Get money — get it honestly, if convenient — but get 
money :" 

" Slavery has a demoralizing tendency." This is considered an axiomatic truth. 
How shall we test it? Shall we try it by the relative number of the truly piou3 
in each section of the country ? The proof will not be found here. Shall we try it 
by the deportment, the zeal, the truth, the fervor, the charity, the humility of the 
professor of religion ? You gain nothing here. Shall we try it by the statistics of 
crime? I know of no better test. Here, unfortunately, lam wanting in authen- 
ticated facts; and therefore I must put my word against your record, and challenge 
you and the world to disprove it. In 1845 you had two thousand two hundred and 
seventy-nine prosecutions for crimes, and one thousand and thirty-eight convictions. 
Surely I never had as many in any one year of my life. Of these twenty were 
tried and eleven convicted for felonious offences against the person, viz: — murder, 
rape, assault with knife or gun, and felonious assault. What the last offence is, as 
contradistinguished from assault with deadly weapon, I do not know, unless it be 
assault with intent to commit a rape, or to rob. If this be the meaning, this offence, 
and the second in the list, is hardly known in this Slate. But as my people are 
quick of temper, sensitive to insult, and too quick to revenge it, I will concede that 
the crimes under this general head were as numerous in tins State in the same year 
as in yours. But to be on the safe side I will grant, that they were double that 
number ; and here I am sure I am beyond the mark. Offences against the person, 
not felonious, come next. Of these there were one hundred and seventy-nv e J 
seventy-eight convictions. They were for simple assault and battery. As the irre- 



GEORGIA TO MASSACHUSETTS. 51 

licrious of my people generally consider it a greater disgrace to submit to an insult 
than to fight, I have no doubt that we equal you here — I will say we quadruple 
you. The next head is offences against property with violence, viz : — riot, burglary, 
highway robbery and arson— number, forty-five; convictions, eighteen. Now I 
think I should hazard but little in saying, that putting all these classes of crimes to- 
gether, we have not had forty-five cases tried and eighteen convictions for them in 
five years. Riots we are strangers to. I never heard of three serious ones since I 
entered the Union. I cannot call to mind two — nay, not one, which resulted in seri- 
ous damage to person or property. Burglary is a crime of very rare occurrence — 
highway robbery has not occurred six times in my borders since I was a State ; and 
arson but very seldom occurs. You had thirteen in your State Prison that year for 
that offence. 1 will vouch for it, I had not four in mine. The next head is offences 
against property without violence, viz: — larceny, cheating, counterfeiting, forgery, 

&c. four hundred and forty cases, two hundred and forty-nine convictions. Here 

I am sure you more than double me. All other offences, one thousand five hundred 
and nine ; convictions, six hundred and eighty-two. Here (which is the best sign of 
the morals of a country,) I am sure you more than quadruple me. On the 30th Sep- 
tember, 1845, you had in your State Prison two hundred and eighty-seven. On 
the same date I had in mine one hundred and twenty-four. Now add to )-our cata- 
logue the whole number of pickpockets « ho escape detection — a class of rogues 
hardly known in this State — and you will have twenty cases of crime to my one. 
Let the comparison be closely made, and you will find this to be the result : In 
crimes originating in temper, I am to you as four to one, (population allower 1 for.) 
In crimes originating in lust and covetousness, you are to me as twenty t one. 
According to your statistics, the first class of cases is to the last as eighty-i.ine to 
nine hundred and forty-nine — taking the convictions as proof of the crimes. Now 
what have you to boast of in point of morals, over a Slave State. Capt. Marry- 
at, speaking of the comparative amount of crime in England and the United States, 
finding himself a little annoyed by the statistics of the two countries, as far as as- 
certained, puts the discredit of the comparison upon the shoulders of poor Ireland 
and the civil authorities of this country, and then adds: "Still, the whole of 
Ireland, would offer nothing equal in atrocity to what I can prove relative to one 
small town in America — that of Augusta, in Georgia — containing only a population 
of three thousand, in which, in one year, there were Jif I y-nine assassinations commit- 
ted in open day, without any notice being taken of them by the authorities." Well, 
now, Madam, you have a fine opportunity of procuring the emancipation of three 
hundred thousand slaves in a day. If you, with Capt. Marryat, and all the abo- 
litionists of the world to assist you, will " prove," by credible testimony, that there 
has ever been one assassination in open day in the city of Augusta, which the civil 
authorities have never noticed, or that there have been the one-half of fifty-nine 
homicides (not to say assassinations,) in that city, since Georgia became an indepen- 
dent State, I pledge myself that every slave in Georgia shall be emancipated on 
the da} r that the proof is adduced. There never has been a homicide in the place, 
night or day, that has passed off unnoticed " by the authorities." The only case 
that I remember, in which there ever was anything like remissness in securing the 
offender, was a very remarkable case. It was this : An Englishman, full-blooded 
and fresh from his parent-land, went at night to a house in which a number of slaves 
were enjoying themselves, at a ball. This man, with some o'hers, obtruded him- 
self among them, and, without any justifiable provocation, discharged his pistol 
among them and killed one of the women. He made his escape, I forget how, but 
I well remember that 1 thought at the time that there was some remissness on 
the part of the anthorities in securing him for trial. This grew out of the fact, th at 
it was manifest he did not intend to kill the woman; but it was, to my mind, 
equally manifest that he meant to kill some one else, the killing of whom would 
have been murder. That the truth or falsehood of this story may be fairly tested. 
I give the name of the Englishman. It was Charles Worcester, a Phrenologist 
by profession. This, I think, was the seventh case of homicide which had happen- 



52 LETTER FROM 

ed in the city when Capt. Marryat wrote his Diary. In all the seven cases the 
offenders were tried — in one of the cases two were tried for the same offence ; the 
one was convicted and executed, the other acquitted. In another, the defendant 
was found guilty of manslaughter, and branded. In another the offender was con- 
victed and executed ; and, in all the rest, the accused were acquitted. Since that 
time, I regret to say, there have been several homicides — more than had ever be- 
fore occurred in the city in the same time ; but trials were had in all the cases 
with various results. I have dwelt upon this report of Capt. Marryat for obvious 
reasons. I dismiss it, with the remark that there is not in all Great Britain, a 
more moral city of the size, than Augusta. When the Captain wrote, the popula- 
tion of Augusta was about six, instead of three thousand. 

" But pass through Massachusetts, and you will find the country in the highest 
state of agricultural improvement. Pass through Georgia, and the eye is constantly 
offended by worn out lands, deserted fields, and decaying habitations." This is 
true ; and what inference shall we draw from it? Why, at the first blush we should 
infer, beyond doubt, that the agricultural productions of Massachusetts must be 
greater and more valuable than those of Goorgia. I suppose nine hundred and nine- 
ty-nine in a thousand travellers through the two countries, would so conclude. But 
the fact is otherwise. Here 1 always beat you largely. I could give the reason of 
it clear enough, but the fact is sufficient for my purpose. 

" But the condition of the poor Slave is so wretched.'' 1 This is wider from 
the truth than any position yet examined. It is a common remark that there is 
not to be found a happier race of beings among the working classes on the face of 
the globe, than the slaves of the South. Most assuredly is this true. AVhat is to 
make them unhappy ? Having never known liberty, they rarely think of it, and 
still more rarely sigh for it. You might as well suppose that the peasant makes 
himself always miserable because he is not a nobleman ; or the subject, because he 
is not a king. This source of unhappiness removed, and there is no other — no other 
I mean, to a vast, vast majority of them. As to the talk of tearing husbands and 
wives asunder; it is not done once by the master, where it is done five hundred 
times by the parties themselves. But I do not mean to discuss the matter, espe- 
cially to deaf ears. They are, upon the whole, a happy people. Let those who 
choose to give reasons for or against this assertion, do so if they will; I have to do 
with the fact, and the fact only. At this moment I turn my eye to this class of my 
population ; and if peace and plenty by day, and laughter, and music, and dancing, 
and song by night, unchecked by care for the present, or thought of the future, 
are tokens of happiness, then there are not three millions of happier beings any- 
where than my slaves. And believe me, Madam, that you and your complotters, 
who gather up the few instances of cruelty to them which sometimes occur, and 
hold thetn up to the world as fair samples of slavery in this country, will have to 
answer in the day of righteous retribution for this falsehood, and for the unmea- 
surable evils which flow from it. In that day you will find, that all sin does not 
consist in Slavery on the one hand, nor all piety in Abolitionism on the other. 
That the Word of truth no more justifies hypocrisy, falsehood, slander, treason and 
violence, in opposition to slavery, than to drunkenness and covetousness. That 
with this word before you, and the lights which have been burning upon it for de- 
cades of centuries, showing that God himself has more than o^ce denounced Sla- 
very upon whole races, as a penalty for sin, he will not justify you in proclaim- 
ing, " trumpet tongued," that Slavery under all circumstances is a damning crime 
against God and Nature. Nor will the false glosses that you have given to his holy 
Word, in order to reduce it to the measure of your ethics, be passed to your credit. 
Nor will he look with much indulgence upon those, who, unable to justify these 
glosses themselves, give them currency, under such endorsements as, " Dr. Chan- 
ning has said," and " Mr. Barnes has declared," and " the profound this one as- 
serts," and "the pious that one avows." On that day, as I reverentially believe, 
many of your sons will come before Him, crying •' Lord, Lord, have we not prophe- 
sied in t ly name ? and in thy name cast out devils ? and in thy name done many 



GEORGIA TV MASSACHUSETTS. 53 

wonderful works 1 unto whom he shall profess, I never knew you ; depart from 
me ye that work iniquity !" While to many a slave-holder he shall say, " Come 
ye blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the founda- 
tion of the world — for I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat ; I was thirsty, 
and ye gave me drink ; I was a stranger, and ye took me in ; naked, and ye 
clothed me ; I was sick, and ye visited me ; I was in prison, and ye came unto me." 
" It will be remembered, that the objections to slavery, which I have been consid- 
ering, are such as regard its influences upon the whites. Had they been confined 
to the blacks, they would have had truth enough in them, to make it desirable to 
every benevolent slaveholder, that they should be emancipated so soon as it can be 
djne peaceably, and with safety to both parties. 

I am done with you, and I am about to bid you farewell, until we meet at Phil- 
ippi. Let me beseech yju to avert the ruin which you are bringing upon the coun- 
try, by a peaceable secession from the Union ; and let all who think as you do 
follow your example. You admit it to have been cemented with your father's 
blood — that as long as men will regard their oaths, it is impregnable to any who 
remain in it. You declare that the Constitution is the adamantine chain of slavery 
— and you proclaim to the world, that the supreme law of the land presses upon 
your conscience, and holds you to a connection with it, that is intolerable to you 
and your religion. What then should you do? Disregard your oaths for con- 
science sake ? Abuse your fathers for their well meant error ? Set a mob upon 
the Constitution ? Cut the master's throat to reform the Government which binds 
you to fellowship with him ? Rob him of his acknowledged rights, because you do 
not like his company ? Surely not. In God's name how have you made proselytes 
to this system of warfare ! Cease your agitations, and calmly appeal to the States, 
(not to Congress,) to release you from the tie that binds you to them ; and let us 
exhibit to the world two sublime political miracles, in less than that many years : 
the nuptials and the divorce of nations, by the omnipotent law of love on the one 
hand, and its kindred law of peace on the other. We have struck the true theory 
of Government, and God seems to be furnishing the proof of it. Let us discard the 
notion of accession by aggressive warfare. Let us repudiate the idea, that the mem- 
bers of the body politic are to be bound to it by withs and thongs, w r hen the nerves 
are cut which made them subservient to its will ; they can only incumber and an- 
noy it afterwards, and must soon spread their gangrene through the whole system. 
Now, that we have a chart and compass whereby we can navigate the ship of 
State through all seas in safety — so long as we can keep her own vermin from 
her timbers, let us not forget the Cynosure of Independence ; but bid her a kind 
farewell for her pilotage through the breakers of the Revolution — blot her out from 
the galaxy that encircles the Eagle's crest — put the Lone Star in its place, and in 
language as peculiarly our own as is the sentiment, add a new motto to the Star 
Spangled Banner : " Let all who love us, come — let all who hate us, 
go!" But will you, Madam, give us the chance to exhibit this sublime spectacle 
to the world 1 Not you. VTou have not the most distant idea of leaving the Union. 
You could not be emptied out of it. With the adhesiveness and offensiveness of 
melted sulphur will you stick to it; ever wasting its strength and tarnishing its 
lustre by your suffocating fumes. Why, then, your pretended horror of Slavery, 
which is removed a thousand miles from you ? To work upon the feelings and 
sympathies of your children and your neighbors, in order to band them against the 
South. Why bring the Constitution of your country into contempt? To quiet the 
consciences of the confederates, in violating its sacred precepts. Why bluster about 
quitting the Union ? To cover your shame in your bold encroachments, and to 
reconcile the South to them, through their love of the Union. Why rave at the 
peaceable accession of Southern territory ? Because it adds to the political strength 
of the South. Why wish to enfeeble this strength ? That you may turn the 
Government into a machine, that shall work as a screw upon the South, and as a 
mint to the North. This explains — what otherwise would be inexplicable— the 
mystery of your success. 

I am done. I have stretched my defence far beyond the limits originally intend- 
ed ; but not too far, to do justice to GEORGIA. 



54 LETTER FROM 



LETTERS FROM 

GEORGIA TO THE SOUTHERN STATES. 



LETTER I 



After having witnessed with ever increasing apprehensions, the progress of Ab- 
olitionism for fifteen or twenty years — after seeing it spread from State to State, 
until it gained the ascendency in two of the strongest Churches of the Union — after 
seeing it, without scTuple and without apology, cut the cords which bound the mem- 
bers of these Churches together, and while in the very act of seizing upon the privi- 
leges and the property of the Southern members, heaping upon them contumely and 
abuse, forbidden by all the laws of courtesy, not to say, of Christianity — after seeing 
it for many long years, harassing Congress with petitions to do what Congress had 
no right to do — and after seeing concession after concession made to it on the part 
of the South, with no other effect then to encourage and to inflame it — after having 
borne its taunts and its insults, until patience ceased to be a virtue, and forbearance 
took the complexion of guilt, if not of treason — while its votaries were in the very 
act of laying siege to the Constitution, with a boldness and a wantonness never be- 
fore equalled by this daring sect — the State looking indifferently upon its ravages 
in the Church, and the Church looking indifferently upon its ravages in the State — 
while all these things were before me, and in progress, I took the pen, in order, to 
the best of my feeble ability, to vindicate my own character, and the character of the 
South from its calumnies, to expose its parentage and designs, and to implore the 
Southern States, by everything that they hold sacred, to cease their wrangling about 
things of minor importance, and to unite in some plan of determined opposition to 
this all-wasting monster. To these ends, I have written nine long letters, and (so 

far as I have seen) I have got my trouble for my pains. No matter : the 

work is a good one, however poorly executed, and I will go on and finish it. 

I now approach the most delicate part of it, which is to lay before the Southern 
States my views of the policy which should govern them, until the Abolition fever 
subsides of itself, or is cured by depletion ; for in doing this, I must necessarily seem 
at times, to favor the views of one or the other of the two great political parties, 
which have ever divided the country. All, however, who will read me with candor, 
and judge me with righteousness, will be constrained to acknowledge, that the real 
design of these letters (which will not exceed two) is to favor no man, nor any class 
of men, but Southern men. I think, that for every opinion which I may advance, 
I shall give reasons cogent enough to convince any candid man that I am sincere in 
those opinions, and that I advance them with no object but to perpetuate the Union 
— to secure to the South her constitutional rights, and to avert civil war ; or if this 
cannot be done, to bring the South victoriously through it 



GEORGIA TO THE SOUTHERN STATES. 55 

No one on this side of Mason and Dixon's Line, knows what Abolitionism is bet- 
ter than I do — not one in a thousand knows it as well as I do. To understand it per- 
fectly, one must have seen its workings amidst prayers and hymns, and thanksgiv- 
ings to God, in the temple where the sons of the North and of the South have been 
wont to worship together for more than a half century. If here, it can insult with- 
out a blush, injure without remorse, dispoil without a twitch, and pray without a 
halt, within the eye-shot of three hundred thousand people, and with nothing to con- 
ceal its deformity but a cob-web tissue of sophistry ; be assured there is no security 
against its despotism in our "parchment idol," as one has well expressed it. It is 
not a thing to be temporized, or tampered with. To my eye, all the agitating top- 
ics of the day sink into perfect insignificance when compared with it ; and for us to be 
disputing about whether this man or that man should be made President— whether 
there are more Abolitionists belonging to this party than that — whether this measure 
or that measure will be the most politic, with all the et ceteras of party polemics ; is 
like wrangling, under the axe of the executioner, about the grave-clothes that we 
will be buriedln. Nothing alarms me more, or amazes me more, than the apathy - 
and indifference with which the Southern people view the encroachments and the 
pretensions of the Abolitionists. With all their boasted high-mindedness and chiv- 
alry, I doubt whether there is another people on the face of the globe, who would 
have seen the fires of destruction kindled around them, as they have been kindled 
around us, with so little resistance, with so little emotion. These Northern rioters 
eome thronging the halls of Congress with bushels of papers at a Session, which 
they are pleased to call petitions for the redress of grievances ; and they bristle fiercely 
at any man who would deny them this " glorious constitutional right of petition." 
And what is the grievance of which they complain? Why they of Massachusetts 
are grieved, that certain persons in the District of Columbia, whom they never saw 
and never expect to see, own Slaves. Open these petitions and you will see the 
very names affixed to them, which you find affixed to resolutions declaring the Con- 
stitution under whose panoply they come, is worthy of the bitterest execration. And 
yet this thing creates no alarms or excitement amongst us. — But let me not again 
repeat what I have already said. Suffice it to say that encroachment after encroach- 
ment, aggression after aggression, comes upon us, and it does not move us. At 
length comes the Wilmot Proviso, an outrage upon all decency and all propriety, 
unlooked for and unprovoked — a mere feeler to drag to light all false professors of 
the Abolition faith, and to segregate for destruction every Northern man, who 
might have integrity and firmness enough to keep his oath and defend his country 
from this infamous attack ; and behold ! it passes the popular branch of the Govern- 
ment by a strong majority ! Northern Whigs and Democrats now take hands, leav- 
ing their Southern allies to shirk for themselves. Peradventure, the South might 
not have sense enough to understand these startling indications of popular feeling at 
the North, the more desperate of the clan proclaim to all the world, " that upon this 
subject, the South will find them united toa man." Actions and words put together, 
and this is their version : " We give you to understand, that whenever Slavery 
can be screwed into any Legislative proceeding on this floor, whether it be in place 
or out of place, you may expect it to be done ; and you may further know, that nei- 
ther oaths nor Constitution will be held a sufficient apology to our constituents for 
voting against any measure the professed object of which is to oppose Slavery — no 
matter what the real object, and no matter how foreign the measure from the pro- 
fessed object." This should have sent one general universal thrill of horror and 
indignation through every bosom of the South. But it has stirred nobody ; most of 
the presses between the Potomac and the Rio Grande, have not spoken of it at all ; 
and the very few that have spoken of it, have done it in a way that argues very lit- 
tle concern about it. The citadel of Freedom is stormed, and the besiegers are en- 
couraged to push on by huzzas and warnings from their homes. Even little Dela- 
ware,°who has but just cracked the shell of Slavery, cheeps to her Representatives 
to throw her two mites into the scale of Abolitionism. In the meantime, what are 
the besieged doing? Just about this : 



56 LETTER FROM 

" Do you see our outpost stormed by a joint attack of Whigs and Democrats ?" 

" Yes ; what shall we do? Hadn't we better capitulate ?" 

"The terms will not admit of capitulation." 

" Then, do you hasteti to the assailants and tell them that we are a high-minded, 
chivalrous people — and do you demonstrate to them that if they keep on in this way, 
they will certainly ruin us in a few years — and do you show how we got into this 
predicament — and do you calculate the number of Whigs, and you the number of 
Democrats, in the enemy's ranks ; and when this is done, let us rush en masse to 
the President, and beg him, for mercy's sake, to do something for us, or we are 
ruined." 

Thus, at the battle-field — how at our homes? 

" Have you seen the Wilmot Proviso? It is too bad !" 

" Is he a Whig or a Democrat?" 

" Upon that subject there'snot much difference between them." 

"Those fellows will never rest till they dissolve the Union ; and you'll see it." 

" Oh, everybody sees that — what's the price of Cotton?" 

" is he a Whig or a Democrat V Aye, there is the turning point of our ruin. 
If a Whig : Southern Whigs are as patient as lambs under his chastisements. If a 
Democrat : Southern Democrats are as meek as sucking doves under his infliction. 
I ask you, Whigs and Democrats, is this the way to save the Union ? Does the 
history of the world furnish one single instance of escape from evil, by such conduct ? 
Has it not uniformly and universally avouched it, and aggravated it ? In this strange 
and unnatural deadness which has come over us, I see one strong ground of encour- 
agement at least, and but one ! It secures us against hasty, intemperate and injudi- 
cious action. Let us avail ourselves of it, to prepare like patriots and like men for 
the coming storm. In the absence of better counsels, let me lay before you the plan 
of defence which I would pursue, and the reasons of it. The cardinal principles of 
it are : 

1 st. The Union must be preserved if possible. 

2d. If this cannot be done, we must so act as to compel those to leave it who do 
not like it — not us. And 

3d. We must be prepared to meet the consequences, if we are forced out of it. 

Upon these heads I have to remark, that so admirably is our Government framed, 
that Abolitionism never can seriously injure us, until it shall have got the control of 
all the three great departments of the Government. While any one of these is be- 
yond its influence, or while any one of these remains pure, we are just as safe from 
its mischievous assaults as we would be in the heart of a rock-mountain. Let not, 
then, our Representatives or our people be rash in uui'ting the Union. An unconsti- 
tutional law can do no great harm, even if it pass both Houses of Congress, while 
the President regards his duty or his oath. It can create no irreparable mischief, 
if it pass both Houses, over the head of the President, (as it may possibly do,) or with 
the sanction of the President, so long as the Supreme Court maintains its integrity. 
Fortunately, the Supreme Court is a permanent body, not dependent upon the whims 
of the populace for its place or its power. It must and will be, therefore, the last 
pillar of the Republic which will give way, and we should never despair of the 
Republic until we see a majority of that body the creatures of Abolitionism. But 
the Abolitionists have the power to make the President, if they will concentrate it 
on this object — the President has the nomination of the Supreme Court. If, there- 
fore, they get their President, and a majority in the Senate, they will be certain, 
after a time, to get a majority of the Court on their side. Now we have seen every- 
where, in Church and State, that compacts are not worth a straw, in the sight of 
an Abolitionist, when his arms are pointed against Slaveholders. If Abolitionism 
does not entirely reverse the moral code of its votary, it most assuredly perverts the 
judgment and distracts the reason. Let us not, then, with the broad lights of ex- 
perience blazing on our pathway, vainly hope for anything from Abolition vows, 
pledges, promises, or piety. These are sad confessions for a believer in Christianity 
to make, but truth and honesty demand them. I do not forget the few exceptions, 



GEORGIA TO THE SOUTHERN STATES. 57 

noble spirits, who were seen plying the life-boat at the wreck of the Churches, and 
amidst the surges which recently beat upon the Constitution j but these are impotent. 
There were Christians, doubtless, in the Legislatures of Massachusetts and Penn- 
sylvania, when they deliberately passed laws to annul the 3d clause, 2d section, IV. 
Article of the Constitution. I smile at these laws, for reasons that will be disclosed 
to the first Convention of the Southern States — they can be turned to good account 
anon — but they are an eighth warning to us, not to trust to Abolition faith under 
any garb. Our safety, then, consists in a sound President, a sound Senate, and a 
sound Court. The second we shall always have, so far as our power can secure it. 
The third depends upon the first, and the first may commonly be secured by pru- 
dence on the part of the South. 

The first question with us, then, in a Presidential Canvass, should always be : 
Is he sound upon the subject of Abolitionism ? Has he been tried, and has he proved 
himself sound ? Not has he said he was sound ? Can he be trusted to veto an un- 
constitutional law, amidst the storms and threats and yells of disappointed Abolition- 
ism 1 If these questions cannot be answered in the affirmative, let no Southern man 
touch him sooner than he would touch a live coal. No matter how well he agrees 
with us in everything else — let him alone, by the salvation of the country. If he 
be sound upon the great point, and his competitor be like him thus far, why then 
choose between them according to your tariff" and your anti-tariff" notions — your war 
and your anti-war notions — or any others that you may spring up to serve the time 
being. Abolitionism is manifestly working out a result which its projectors did not 
dream of. Some of the more simple and honest-hearted really begin to believe that 
they cannot live in safety to their souls under a Government that recognizes Slavery. 
This spirit may in time, and probably will, if the agitation is kept up as hitherto, 
exert a controlling influence, and compel some of the New England States to quit 
the Union. We should throw all our power, therefore, about the Constitution, that 
we may drive these malcontents to despair of a change or overthrow of the Gov- 
ernment. If they desire to leave us, let no Southern man raise a voice against it. 
They will not be oat of the Union a twelve-month before they will be sueing for re- 
admission, as perfectly weaned of Abolitionism as I am now. 

But how are we to do when Abolitionism makes its appearance (as it often 
will,) in the form of the Wilmot Proviso ? — when an indispensible law cannot 
be passed, without, at the same time, establishing a proviso that is fatal to the rights 
of the South ? I answer, examine the law and the proviso well, and see whether 
the last be constitutional or not. If it be not, then look to see whether it can be 
brought within the cognizance of the Supreme Court; and if it cannot be, vote 
against the whole law, giving your reasons, and let the Government suffer the con- 
sequences of the infamous tactics of these disorganisers. To illustrate : Suppose the 
Wilmot Proviso had become a law, and by treaty a strip of Mexican territory 
adjoining Texas had been ceded to the United States — and suppose that slavehol- 
ders of Texas had moved over and settled on it, does any man believe that they 
could have been repelled from their possessions by virtue of that law ? The officer 
who would undertake to disturb them would be sued — he would justify under the 
law — the Supreme Court would proo unce the law void, and there would be an end 
of the matter. 

But still the Constitution may be so daringly overleaped, and, in a matter of 
such vital importance to the South, that we cannot with safety wait the tardy pro- 
cess of a legal remedy. And, whether this be the case or not, it is likely that the 
Abolitionists (without a blow-up among themselves.) will in] time get the control 
of all the departments of Government, and, as soon as this is the case, we should 
separate from them in a body; for be assured, that of all Despotisms that ever cursed 
a people, th s will be the worst. 

Now we should begin camly and prudently to prepare for this event. We should 
have a military school in every State, and we should patronize them liberally in every 
way. Tactics should be a part of the study and training of every College. Our 
militia laws should undergo a thorough remodeling;. Our men should be drilled 



58 LETTER FROM 

four times where they are now drilled once. There should be an official connec- 
tion between the officers of each military school and the militia of the State in 
which it may be established. Each State should have complete equipments for 
twenty thousand soldiers at least, always on hand and in good order. The people 
should be fully instructed upon all occasions as to end and aim of these preparations 

every movement in Congress against the rights of the South should be made 

known to them, with the names of the men who supported and opposed it, and of 
the States which they represent. But is there not danger in all this? None at 
all. What can a well-disciplined militia do to disturb the peace of the country 
under our system of organization, with the enemy hundreds of miles off? But, if 
it be dangerous, it is not near as dangerous as Abolitionism, or apathy, or tardiness in 
preparing to meet its inevitable issues. What has become of the hacknied proverb, 
that " the best way to secure peace is to be always prepared for war?" When 
the Abolitionists perceive that we are prepared for the argumentum ad hominem, 
they may disband ; and then let us do the like. GEORGIA. 



LETTER II 



It may be well, before I proceed farther in the development of my views upon the 
policy of the Southern States in regard to Abolitionism, to subjoin an extract or 
two from a Massachusetts paper, confirmatory of the remark with which I closed 
my last letter : 

"The great political contest in this country, in reality is, and long has been, 
the contest between Freedom on the one side, and Slavery on the other. Other is- 
sues have been presented to the people, but the slave power has always stood back 

of them and controlled them." " Why, then, should we longer plav bo-peep 

around this colossal power, as if Tariffs, or any such thing, were issues of the least 
consequence in themselves? Why not at once present the true issue — the issue 
which must ere long be tried and determined — that of Freedom or Slavery?" 

There can be no doubt of the truth of these remarks. Abolitionism has two 
names at the North, but is substantially the same thing under both ; and turn our 
eyes whithersoever we may, we see the signs infallible that the Government, or the 
slave power, is to be crushed. If, therefore, we would not add the guilt of suicide 
to the guilt of negligence, let us prepare for the great issue. How madly do we act 
in refusing to look the thing in the face because it is offensive to the sight. I have 
shown the best way to avert, and the best way to^meet the threatened catastrophe, 
namely: by keeping up the breastwork of the Constitution, and by organizing a 
strong military force behind it. But there are other plain indications of policy 
which are inseperably connected with these measures, and without a proper use of 
which they will be unavailing. We have seen that the powers of the Government 
must ultimately fall into the hands of our enemies, and surely we will not act so un- 
wisely as to strengthen the arm of that Government. To do this, will be to put a 
dagger into the hand which is up-raised for our destruction. No measure, therefore, 
which must plainly increase the political power of the North, or which must enrich 
it more than the South, or increase its powers of exaction, should ever be supported 
by the Southern Stales, while we occupy our present, position — however wise and 
politic those measures might be in a different state of things. It is the duty of the 
whole Union to hold the Government to the strictest economy ; but to the South, 
this is a measure of safety as well as of expediency. They who control the purse 
of the nation will be certain to help themselves to most of its contents. We should 
take care, therefore, that we do not fill it with redundant treasure. Useless funds 



GEORGIA TO THE SOUTHERN STATES. 59 

in the treasury are the nest-eggs of mischief in many ways. They become a bone 
of contention among the States — they beget extravagance and incautious expendi- 
ture, which are sure to beget new demands for more money, an increased number 
of public servants, and a dangerous increase of Executive patronage. Here is the 
grand secret of the alarming commotion which every Presidential election occasions. 
Of the millions annually expended by the Government, eigh teen-twentieths of it at 
least go through the hands of officers of his appointing, directly or indirectly. 

We should begin now to anticipate the state of our Commerce, in case we shall 
be driven out of the Union. In this event, we must either have no commerce at all, 
or it must be direct between our own and foreign ports. If we cannot, as we now 
are, get up a direct trade, we certainly can keep from driving it from our doors, 
when it comes from other nations. The annals of Congress, and of my Legislature, 
show what my motives have ever been in regard to free trade ; but suppose that I 
have erred in this regard hitherto. I cannot err in saying that while we are threat- 
ened with the loss of the home-trade, we should be looking out for some other — per- 
adventure we be cut off from the one, just as we cut ourselves off from the other, 
and thus be left without any. 

The Southern States should, by some means, be interchanging their views as 
to their future connection, in case they be repelled from the Union, lest, when the 
evil day comes, they be like a routed band of soldiers, fleeing in every direction, 
without object or rallying point. I heard that it was in the contemplation of the 
Southern Representatives in Congress to leave in a body, if the Wilmot Proviso 
passed both Houses. This was probably a mistake ; but suppose that had been 
done, in what a state of confusion should we have been at the South ! This should 
never be done. Our Representatives, however, with that example before their 
eyes, would do well to meet at a convenient season, and draw up some plan of pro- 
cedure for the South, in case they should discover that we can no longer remain in 
the Union with safety , and their plan should be made known to the most prudent 
and influential of their constituents whose suggestions should be carried back to 
Congress and discussed, and if good, be incorporated into the plan. In this way we 
might, in a few yeaTS, have a complete system of organization, ready for any emer- 
gency — to be flung in the fire if the Abolitionists cease their attacks, or to be used 
if they push them beyond endurance. 

All these heads I had intended to discuss at some length; but finding it impossi- 
ble to do so without treading upon disputed ground too far, and without seeming to 
favor men or parties, I forbear. This much, however, I will venture to say : that of 
ihe distinguished individuals spoken of for the Presidency, I think there are none 
who may not be safely trusted, so far as Slavery is concerned : President Polk, 
Vice President Dallas, Benton, Cass, Calhoun, Clay, Taylor, and Scott, 
are all sound, I doubt not, upon this head. Could the lives of these men be pro- 
longed to the requisite period, and their mental vigor be preserved, nothing would 
afford me more pleasure than to be assured that these men would monopolize the 
Presidency, (alternately one from either party,) for the next two and thirty years to 
come. I certainly have very decided preferences between them, but I would forego 
these preferences, rather than run the risk of getting a worse man than either fast- 
ened upon us for more than four years, or an Abolitionist fastened upon us for any 
time. All who have noticed my votes for many years past, will give me credit for 
candor in this declaration at least, for I have been taunted with my unsteadiness in 
President-making not unfrequently. 

A few words of explanation, and I have done. Some of these should have been 
given before, but I forgot them, and give them now. We all, who look upon passing 
events, have a morbid sensibility upon some subject — one upon Slavery, another upon 
Papacy, another upon War, another upon this thing and another upon that ; and 
miue may be upon the subject of Abolitionism. I sincerely hope it may be so. But 
if so, it is a sensibility awakened not in the cloister, but by the unsought evidence of 
my senses. I cannot be mistaken as to the manner in which Northern Governors 
and Judges treat applicants for fugitive Slaves. I cannot be mistaken about the 



60 LETTER FROM 

blood-hound fury with which such applicants are pursued by the populace of the 
North. I cannot be mistaken about the statutes made to protect the fugitive and 
punish the master. I cannot be mistaken as to the anti-Slavery spirit in Congress. 
I cannot be mistaken as to what that spirit has done in the Churches. These, not 
yet all told, are signs infallible to my mind that the South is in great danger from 
this spirit ; but I saw her doing nothing, saying nothing to quench it. It seemed to 
me the time had come for some one to speak in her behalf — and I have done so — with 
no design to stir hot blood, or to excite civil commotion. I would rather nothing 
should be done, than that anything should be done in rashness or wrath. I desire to 
wake the South up from deadness°and apathy — not to a fiery, intemperate, thought- 
less course of action, but to a calm, determined, dignified opposition to this disorgan - 
izing monster, and an equally wise and sober preparation for the worst that can come 
of it. I believed that unless something of this kind were done, the Republic would 
not survive twenty years ; and I knew that the crash of its fall would hardly be 
heard before the Northern Press would teem with histories, tracing its overthrow 
to Slavery, Southern intemperance, cruelty, covetousness and restlessness. I deter- 
mined, therefore, to do my best to save our character from the ruins, if I could save 
nothing more. I believed that, but for Massachustets, the fell spirit of Abolitionism 
would hardly have been stirred ;or, if stirred, it would not, for many years to come, 
have assumed its present formidable appearance. I determined, therefore, to let 
the world know who and what Massachusetts was, in order that she might be en- 
titled to all the credit or discredit which attaches to her distinguished 'position ; 
and, with as much fairness as I could, I have bound up my own history with hers, 
so that if the one should ever be disinterred from the gTave of oblivion, the other may 
rise with it. In doing this, I was not without hope that a new way of meeting Abo- 
litionism'might possibly disarm it of some of its power, and thus prolong, if not save 
the Republic ; while I saw plainly that the old way of treating it (not noticing it,) 
was adding to its strength daily, and that no way of meeting it could increase its 
dangers. When I resolved to speak to it, I found it warring upon the Constitution, 
snatching from us our rights, bullying us to our faces, twitting us with our ignorance, 
and threatening with one common ruin the Government, the South, and even its 
own offspring— and yet 1 determined to speak to it calmly. 

But in view of our long-endured injuries, the wantonness of the attacks upon us, 
the cruelty, insolence and daring of those attacks, the breaches of faith through 
which they were made, the hardship of being thus set upon, for no fault of ours, 
for a mere relation in which we found ourselves by birth, from which we could 
not release ourselves, brought on us, too, by our persecutors — assailed in our feel- 
ings, in our character, in our families, in our Churches, in our Capital, at home, 
abroad, at all times, in all places, by men, by women, by whites, by blacks, by 
Christians, by scoundrels, by ex- Presidents, by scullions, while all the time we 
were lifting up the natural, if not too humble cry, "let us alone — let us alone — for 
mercy's sake, for peace sake, for our father's sake, for our country's sake, for God's 
sake, let us alone, and attend to your own concerns — Slavery is enough to bear, all 
admit, without any aggravations" — in view of all these things, and their lamentable 
consequences just ahead, I have sometimes spoken unguardedly, perhaps too severely 
for my credit, if not for my cause. The candid and the charitable will excuse me ; 
I have nothing to ask of any others. 

One has said, " with the politics of the author we have nothing to do." If he 
will re-peruse my letters, he will see that I speak on political matters with which 
I have to do, as Georgia, in my sovereign character, or in the name of a majority of 
my children. I speak of Massachusetts (except in noticing some little incident) in 
the same way. I charge her with such things only, as she, in her sovereign charac- 
ter, has done or sanctioned, or such as I have clear proof that a majority of her child- 
ren approve or design. I said in the beginning, and I repeat it here, that many of 
her sons have had no part in her ruinous projects, and that such are among the 
very noblest of the noble. If I am asked why I hold her responsible for the mon- 
strous doctrines of the Abolition meeting, I answer because I had seen the very 



GEORGIA TO THE SOUTHERN STATES. 61 

principles of that meeting in her own conduct, and had exposed them before I ever 
saw the proceedings of that meeting. I collected them by comparing word with 
word and action with action, and action with word, as plainly lurkino- under 
her movements, though not as plainly expressed as by the Abolition meetincr. 

I have been actuated in all 1 said and done by an honest desire to save the coun- 
try, and to vindicate my character, and the character of the South, from asper- 
sions which have been so long cast upon them, that almost the whole enlightened 
world takes us to be a band of cut-throats, robbers, and tyrants. That man Garri- 
son goes over to England, and he fills all Great Britain with false reports of the 
Southern character. I have thrown to the wings of chance a daguerreotype from the 
focus of Slavery, and from the focus of Abolitionism, in the hope that kind Fortune 
may bear them along the path of the slanderous Garrison, if no farther, and to as 
many eyes as he found ears for his detraction. Whatever may be the result of my 
labors, the design of them is as pure as anything that emanated from 

GEORGIA. 



THE END. 



A 



APPENDIX. 



THE WILMOT PROVISO 

IS ABOLITION, AGGRESSIVE, REVOLUTIONARY, AND SUBVERSIVE OF 

THE CONSTITUTION AND ITS GUARANTIES TO THE 

SLAVEHOLDING STATES. 

With an anxious desire to prevent the dangers which menace this Union, to the 
preservation of which, in its purity and original design, we are as warmly devoted 
as any men living, we sometime since stated our design to embody and present to 
the people in one view the tangible official measures of the Abolition Party, under 
their new banner, the Wilmot Proviso. We then thought, and still think, that the 
Slaveholding States have been lulled into a false, and it may be a fatal, non-action, 
because part]}' they fear to look at their case exaclly as it is, unwisely expecting to 
escape its perils by shutting their eyes to the startling demonstrations of ill boding all 
around them, and weekly trusting to delusive promises and arrangements of politi- 
cal managers, and the presses which are their organs and parts of their machinery ; 
yielding themselves up to those who are harnessed to party, who make its triumph 
their paramount object, going for offices, power, and spoils, without regarding the 
fatal concessions which they make to procure the votes and co-operation of Abolition 
allies. Abolition is thus allowed to get into close communion with both parties ; to 
walk up to the helm of their political ship, to take the compass and steer it by their 
principles. And while dangers thicken, and the toils are being drawn to a fatal con- 
summation, even after the votes of dead majorities of the House of Representatives 
in two successive sessions of Congress have cut away every principle of safety, and 
the concurrent and almost unanimous Resolutions of Ten States have rung the death 
knell of their Constitutional guaranties, such has been the lack of wisdom, spirit, 
and self-reliance amongst us, that presses and politicians, instead of rousing; the peo- 
ple to organize for the defence of their Constitution, privileges, and institutions, ex- 
hort them to confide all to party management, and leave the safety of all they hold 
dear to the secret arrangements of political bargainers, wholly irresponsible tothem, 
and whose most trusted allies are men whose sympathies, principles, and constitu- 
encies are steeped in Abolition. There is a fatal error here. It is time for the peo- 
ple of the non-slaveholding States to disavow the acts of their politicians and leaders, 
and for the Slaveholding States to look to their own preservation. We cannot safe- 
ly, without great risk, confide our defence to any but ourselves. The people of the 
non-Slaveholding States should let us alone. The Wilmot Abolition Proviso is 
splitting the Union into sectional parties ; it is virtually the first step to a dissolu- 
tion. We appeal from their political leaders to themselves to arrest this progress to 
the ruin of the Republic. And that the North may see the truth and know the 
consequences, and that the Slave States may also know the length and breadth of 
the measures progressing for their destruction, we shall adduce and publish here- 
with such incontestible proofs of official and State action as the most confiding po- 
litical dupe cannot palliate or deny. 

The evidence derived from the press, abundant and virulent as it is, we pass by ; 
the petitions and memorials of societies and individuals, under which the tables of 



64 APPENDIX. 

Congress groan, insulting and irritating as *hey are, we do not count; our proofs of 
hostility to the rights, peace and safety of the Slave States shall be confined in this 
review to the official measures of the non-Slave States by their Representatives in 
Congress and in their State Legislatures — these being too, almost equally the acts of 
Whigs and Democrats, show that both of these parties, with few and constantly di- 
minishing exceptions, have been absorbed in the movements of Abolition, and are 
controlled by it ; and that thereby Abolition has been advanced into a new position, 
which is the m iSt dangerous it has ever occupied, because it is subversive of the 
Constitution, and Revolutionary, and will, if it is not now met, resisted and defeated, 
by the peaceful extension of the Missouri Compromise and the settlement of the is- 
sue on that basis, inevitably lead to the destruction of the rights of the Slavehold- 
ing States and their citizens, or to the necessity of maintaining them by the sword. 
This evidence will further show to the country, that in all cases the Slavehold- 
ing States have been the party assailed ; and assailed upon points of vital conse- 
quence, where to yield on their part, is to submit to ruin and degradation ; and that 
they have never assaulted in turn, but have acted throughout purely in self-defence. 
It will show also, that while the attack is one of fearful danger, that it has been 
deliberately prepared, is widely adopted, has been pursued with a cool and inflexi- 
ble resolution, and has combined in its aggression a most formidable array of the 
non-Slaveholding States, not only in and through the almost unanimous votes of 
their Representatives in Congress, Whig and Democratic, but by their State Gov- 
ernments : and that being thus a Governmental State movement combined, and with 
this fixed and determinate purpose, it will, if successful, revolutionise the Govern- 
ment, put the Constitution itself in the hands of Abolition, and take from the Slave- 
holding States every security for their rights and property which that compact now 
guaranties to them. 

The progress of this movement has been one of cold, stern purpose, marching 
steadily forward with unfaltering step to its object. To understand in its import 
the dangerous nature and the resolute progressive influences combined to carry it, a 
retrospect of a few years, to trace the prior action ot Abolition in this country, will 
be useful. This we shall make very briefly. 

Although a disposition existed with a class of individuals in this country to attack 
the slave institutions of the States, it was not until after the example of British 
West India Emancipation, that it was taken up by any of the States, and became 
excited to dangerous activity and power. Massachusetts took the first direct overt 
step in State aggression. The history of it is briefly this : A most dangerous in- 
surrection had been discovered and suppressed in 1822, which had been planned and 
instigated by foreign colored persons, (from St. Domingo,) who had seduced the 
colored natives, free and slaves, into a bloody plot to murder the whites, and plun- 
der and burn the City of Charleston. To guard life and property from the horrors 
of servile insurrection, an act of the Legislature was passed, prohibiting the intru- 
sion or residence of foreign persons of color amongst our slaves ; a measure neces- 
sary to self-preservation, and of equal humanity to whites and blacks. 

During fourteen years this act was enforced without complaint or remonstrance 
from any one of the American States. But then came British West India Emanci- 
pation, waking a kindred spirit at the North. Massachusetts aroused from her slum- 
ber of fourteen years to the sudden discovery, that this act of humanity, so neces- 
sary to protect thousands of their free white fellow citizens, their wives and chil- 
dren, from massacre, and even greater atrocities, was a supposed invasion of hypo- 
thetical rights of her colored citizens, and imposed on her " a paramount duty" to 
remonstrate against it, and resist it. The supposed rights of her colored citizens 
was their free access to our slaves, and would have opened wide our portals to the 
emissaries of rebellion, and put the peace, property and lives of our people at the 
tender mercies of that speculative philanthropy, which will see no guilt in stimu- 
lating the black slaves to treason, murder and arson on their white masters. 

On this pretext Massachusetts began a war of legislative reports, protests and re- 
solutions, which has been prosecuted by her and other anti-Slavery States ever 
since without cessation, going even to the bold extent of sending agents with her com- 



APPENDIX. 65 

missions to invade the territories of South Carolina and Louisiana, to hraye their 
authority, and to break the laws enacted to protect themselves from domestic insur- 
rection and servile massacre. 

From this beginning sprung other acts of like character ; and the records of Con- 
gress teem with documents emanating not from fanatical individuals alone, but from 
sovereign States, which contain the most unwarrantable aspersions, irritating to their 
feelings, unfriendly in their bearing, embittering rank wrong by biting insults, and 
disturbing their tranquillity by agitations dangerous to their peace and safety; and yet 
under all these aggressions, the Slaveholding States, confining themselves strictly 
within the bounds of their rights and duties, have never been aggressors, but have 
acted purely on the defensive. But what has been the reward of their forbearance? 
An increase of injury and aggression. The causes for painful anxiety, from the con- 
currence of so many of their sister States in conduct subversive of good feeling and 
confidence, has more recently grown into profound alarm, by circumstances so preg- 
nant of evil omen as to shake all reliance on the efficacy and value of the guarantees 
of the Constitution itself for our safety and protection. 

For the sake of convenience and brevity, we will divide and treat of these circum- 
stances under two heads or classes. 

The first of these is the withdrawal by such States as New York, Pennsylva- 
nia and Massachusetts of all State aids, stipulated for in the Constitution, and pro- 
vided for in the Act of Congress of 1793, for the recovery of fugitive slaves, and for 
the arresting and delivery of those who are charged with the felony of stealing 
slaves from their masters in their own States. The most flagrant of these is the act 
of Pennsylvania recently passed, and which we publish with this article— an act 
which has been responded to in Carlisle, one of its towns, by the murder of a peace- 
ful citizen of Maryland, whose only offence was that he arrested and attempted to 
carry home his runaway slave which he found there. We omit the laws of New 
York, Massachusetts and other States of cognate character, not having room for 
them, and leaving this one of Pennsylvania to speak for the others, and to show to 
the Slaveholding States how faithfully their Northern sisters fulfil the compacts of 
the Constitution, and obey the laws of Congress made to enforce them, in regard to 
slavery. And to enable them to do this more understandingly, we put the article of 
the Constitution, and the Act of Congress of 1793, side and side with the law of 
Pennsylvania. 

The second class of these circumstances is the repeal of the 21st rule, its natural 
corralleries the repudiation of the Missouri Compromise, the passage in two suc- 
cessive Sessions of the Wilmot Proviso by the popular branch of Congress, and the 
combined affiliated resolutions of New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Vermont, 
Ohio, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Michigan — TEN 
of the SOVEREIGN STATES of this Confederated Republic— Of TEN 
STATES which wield votes enough to control the legislation of Congress, and to 
elect a President of the United States ! 

We have shown that in all that relates to this unhappy controversy, the Slave- 
holding States have in no instance been aggressors; that the subject of quarrel has 
been selected by the other side ; the quarrel itself begun by them ; and that it has been 
urged in all its desperate tendencies by them. And in regard to the second class, 
viz : the repeal of the 21st rule, the repudiation of the Missouri Compromise, the 
Wilmot Proviso, and the affiliated Legislative resolutions of these Ten States, we 
publish these resolutions with dates at which they were presented in the House of 
Representatives, as well as such defensive proceedings on the side of the Slavehold- 
ing States as have the sanction of Legislatures or Conventions. We have several 
objects in thus collecting and throwing before the public these authentic records. 

One object is, to show, by comparing the dates of these measures on both sides, 
that what we have said above is strictly true — that Abolition and its friends are the 
aggressors on the Slave States; and that it was not until the combination of all par- 
ties with Abolition was manifested in the events of the last Session of Congress, and 
the co-operation of their allied States, that a single movement, even of self defence, 
was made by the Slaveholding States, either in Congress, their Legislatures, or Con- 
ventions. 



66 APPENDIX. 

On the 6th of August, 1846, being the 1st Session of the 29th Congress, whilst 
a bill appropriating; $2,000,000 to procure a peace with Mexico wason its passage, Da- 
vid Wilmot, a Democratic Representative of Pennsylvania, offered an amendment 
in the following words : 

" Provided further, That there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servi- 
tude in any territory on the continent of America, which shall hereafter be acquired 
by, or annexed to the United States by virtue of this appropriation, or in any other 
manner whatever, except for crimes whereof the party shall have been duly con- 
victed. 

No debate was allowed — the South was gagged, and the amendment passed by a 
vote of 85 to 80. 

The bill failed to become a Law in the Senate ; and at the next session, on the 
29th December, before the Committee to which the Mexican question was regular- 
ly referred had time to act upon the subject, Mr. Preston King, of JNew York, 
rose in his place, resumed the offensive, and gave notice of his intention'to introduce 
a bill upon this subject, containing Mr. Wilmot's Proviso. On the 4th January, 
1837, he asked leave of the House to introduce his bill, which was refused. On the 
next day he resumed his purpose, and in a long speech, in which he explained the 
object of the Proviso, said, in regard to a peace with Mexico, that it would be "vain 
to attempt to conceal that the acquisition of new territory, at least of the Californias 
and JYcrv Mexico * * * * * will be insisted upon by the 
United States;" and that it was the fixed and determined purpose of the non-slave 
States to exclude Slaveholders with their property from that territory. 

It is upon the basis laid down in the speech of Mr. King, their organ, supported 
by Mr. Brinkerhoff, of Ohio, Mr. Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, and Hannibal 
Hamlin, of Maine, that this Abolition movement has since proceeded, conforming 
to its principles strictly, both in Congress and in those States which have supported 
it by their Legislatures. What has given to it even more ominous gravity and con- 
sequence, is the fact, that in its support we can see (with a few honorable excep- 
tions) no difference in the zeal and unanimity of original Abolitionists and their mo- 
dern recruits, Democrats and Whigs. On this issue, the politicians, with very few 
exceptions, cohere and make one party north of Mason and Dixon's line. From 
them we appeal to the people, in the hope that a returning sense of justice will yet 
save our country from the perils they have created. 

On February 1, 1847, Mr. Wilmot renewed his motion to amend the bill to ap- 
propriate $3,000,000 for a peace with Mexico, by adding his Proviso. This was 
debated until the 15th, when it passed — 115 to 105. During this debate, and to 
influence and act on the decision, Resolutions from several State Legislatures, endor- 
sing and approving the measure, were presented in the House of Representatives — 
the great States, New York and Pennsylvania, taking the lead, and presenting theirs 
together on the 6th February. A few days after, Vermont, Rhode Island, New 
Jersey and Michigan followed ; Massachusetts and New Hampshire also did the 
same. Thus the extraordinary spectacle was presented of nine confederate States, 
parties to a solemn Constitutional compact which guarantied equal rights to all their 
confederate sisters, bringing their sovereign organic influence into the National 
Council, to force up their representatives to an act designed to exclude the citizens of 
Slaveholding States from emigrating with their property into territories of the Uni- 
ted States which are their joint and common property, in disregard of their equal 
rights thereto, and in violation of that compact of the Constitution which stipulates 
that " the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immuni- 
ties of citizens in the several States." 

But our main purpose is to show that these measures, if successful, will subvert 
and override the Constitution, revolutionise and change this Government, and put 
the Constitution and Slavery in the power or at the disposal of Abolitionism. In 
short, that the Wilmot Proviso is Abolition — Abolition in the most dangerous form 
it has ever assumed ; and that, if it is not now met, resisted and defeated, by peace- 
ful compromise and settlement on the Missouri basis, it will end in the utter ruin of 
the slaveholders, or compel them to resistance hereafter by the sword. 



APPENDIX. 67 

We have said that the Wilmot Proviso, if successful, subverts and overrides the 
Constitution. The foundation of that instrument is equality amongst the States, 
and equality of rights amongst the citizens ; equality in the joint and common pro- 
perty, and its benefits and enjoyment. The territories that belong now, or may be 
acquired, are joint and common property ; and whether acquired by purchase or con- 
quest, have been and will continue to be, at the joint and common expense of trea- 
sure, blood and service. No slaveholder has ever proposed to exclude any citizen 
of any State, or even any foreigner from them ; but the Wilmot Proviso excludes 
every slaveholder who will not renounce his property. There is thus imposed, by 
an act of Congress, as a fixed and fundamental condition to emigration from the 
Slave States, that no owner of slaves shall be permitted to go with his property into 
them. If we look into the Constitution for any such condition, it is nowhere to be 
found. In art, 6. it says : " This Constitution, &c. shall be the supreme law of the 
land ;" but the Wilmot Proviso interpolates, flatly usurps a power above this, to 
impose as a fundamental condition to the enjoyment of the joint and common pro- 
perty of the United States what the Constitution nowhere authorizes, and against 
which all its principles and all sense of justice revolts. This is a condition which 
overrides the Constitution — is paramount to it — changes it fundamentally, and anni- 
hilates the highest privileges of nearly one-half of this Confederacy. 

The Resolutions of several of the States go further still in open words, but not 
further in effect and operation, when they declare that no new State shall be ad- 
mitted which tolerates slavery. That this is the meaning and intent of the Wil- 
mot Proviso no man doubts. The speeches of the mover of it, and of its supporters, 
Preston King, Hannibal Hamlin, Brinkerhoff, &c. avow it. Here again 
they impose a condition not in the Constitution, but over and above it : " New 
States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union," says that compact ; "on 
condition however," with insulting arrogance adds the Wilmot Proviso Abolition 
party, " that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall be tolerated in them." 
This is the plain statement of the case — and now let us see what will be its opera- 
tion. 

The United States now own in Oregon and the intervening lands avast domain, 
sufficient for some twenty States. The Mexican treaty may, and most probably 
will, add territory enough to make ten or fifteen more. All of these, this new in- 
terpolation, or rather despot Proviso, will force to exclude slavery, and of course 
adds them to the non-slave States, which are already a majority, now numbering 
fifteen ; while the slaveholding States are but fourteen, including Delaware, which 
is never true to them. The Constitution, as it now stands, guaranties slavery to us, 
and Congress has no power over it, or right to touch it, in the States. But the 
Constitution provides for its own amendment : two-thirds of Congress, or two-thirds 
of the States, may propose any amendment, which shall be valid if ratified by three- 
fourths of the States ; and here is our danger, our greatest peril. The Proviso will 
limit the Slave States to their present number; while new Free States, without 
limit, may be admitted into the Union. They not only grow in numbers and power, 
while the Slave States are limited and dwarfed, but they are to be formed on all 
sides of the Slave States, enveloping them with enemies to their institutions, and ex- 
tending all around them the same border intrigues with their slaves that have driven 
Delaware into their arms, and is destroying the value of that properly on their bor- 
ders, in Marylaud, Virginia, and Kentucky. They will soon have the two-thirds 
which are required to propose the amendment ; and at no very remote day will have 
the three-fourths necessary to carry it, which will give to their Congress the power 
to abolish Slavery. The end aimed at is to get the power granted by the Consti- 
tution, not perhaps to exercise it at once, but to hold it in terrorem over us, and by 
it to rule and subject us to whatever measures of taxation, revenue, or expenditure 
their interests may dictate; and eventually perhaps, at some moment of fancied in- 
terest, or under the excitement of feeling or fanaticism, to end our suspense by con- 
summating the act. 



68 APPENDIX. 

A revolution is in progress by the Wilmot Proviso. The equality of the States 
and of American citizens is being destroyed. The balance of power between the 
Slave and Free States is being subverted. The guaranties of the Constitution, 
often disregarded,, are about to be utterly overthrown and rendered useless ; and the 
Constitution and Slavery are being transferred by the Wilmot movement to Aboli- 
tion and its allies. 

Already the ten States that have spoken in their their resolutions, can vote 118 
votes out of 224 in the House of Representatives — a majority of six, without calling 
on Connecticut, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa or Wisconsin; and in the election of Pres£ 
dent they can cast within six votes of enough to elect. Counting the free States 
all together, they can command both Houses of Congress, and elect a President now. 
What is the situation of the Slave States under this condition of affairs? One of 
imminent peril — one demanding grave counsel — one calling for new guaranties ; and 
we say, in the noble warning words of Virginia's resolution, " that the passage of 
the above mentioned Proviso makes it the duty of every slave-holding State" and 
the citizens thereof, as they value their dearest privileges, their sovereignty, their 
independence, their rights of property, to take firm, united and concerted action in 
this emergency." 



Constitution of the United States, article 4th, section 2. 

A person charged in any State with treason, felony or other crime, who shall ilee 
from justice, and be found in another State, shall on demand of the Executive author- 
ity of the State from which he fled, be delivered up to be removed to the State having 
jurisdiction of the crime. 

No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping 
into another, shall in consequence of any law er regulation therein, be discharged from 
such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such ser- 
vice or labor may be due. 

Jin act res])ecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of 

their masters. 

Sec 3. That when a person held to labor in any of tbe United States or in either of 
the territories on the Northwest or South of the river Ohio, under the laws thereof, 
shall escape into any other of the said States or Territory, the person to whom such 
labor or service may be due^his agent or attorney, is hereby empowered to seize or ar- 
rest such fugitive from labor, and to take him or her before any Judge of the Circuit 
or District Courts of the United States, residing or being within the State, or before 
any Magistrate of a county, city or town corporate wherein such seizure or arrest shall 
be made, and upon proof, to the satisfaction of such Judge or Magistrate, either by 
oral testimony or affidavit taken before and certified by a Magistrate of any such State 
or Territory, that the persons so seized or arrested doth under the laws of the State or 
Territory from which he or she fled, owe service or labor to the person claiming him 
or her, it shall be the duty of such Judge or Magistrate to give a certificate thereof to 
such claimant, his agent or attorney, which shall be sufficient warrant for removing the 
said fugitive from labor, to the State or Territory from which he or she fled. 

Sec. 4. That any person who shall knowingly and willingly obstruct or hinder such 
claimant, |his agent or attorney, in so seizing or arresting such fugitive from labor, or 
shall^rescue such fugitive from such claimant, his agent or attorney, when so arrested, 
pursuant to the authority herein given or declared ; or shall harbor or conceal such 
person after notice that he or she was a fugitive from labor, as aforesaid, shall, for 
either of the said offences, forfeit and pay the sum ot five hundred dollars, which pen- 
alty may be recovered by and tor the benefit of such claimant, by action of debt, in any 
Court proper to try the same ; saving moreover, to the person claiming such labor or 
service, his right of action for, or on account of the said injuries, or either of them. 

[Approved February 12, 1793.] 

Law of Pennsylvania. 
Sec. 3. That no judge of any of the courts of this Commonwealth, nor any alder- 
man or justice of the peace of said Commonwealth, shall have jurisdiction or take cog- 
nizance of the case of any fugitive from labor from any of the United States or territo- 



APPENDIX. 69 

lies, under a certain act of Congress, passed February 12, 1793, entitled, " An act re- 
specting fugitives from justice and persons escaping from the service of their masters," 
nor shall any such judge, alderman or justice of the peace of this Commonwealth, issue 
or grant any certificate or warrant of removal of any such fugitive from labor under 
said act of Congress, or under any other law, authority or act of Congress of die Uni- 
ted States; and if any alderman or justice of the peace of this Commonwealth, shall 
take cognizance or jurisdiction of the case of any such fugitive, or shall grant or issue 
any certificate or warrant of removal as aforesaid, he shall be deemed guilty of a mis- 
demeanor in office, and shall on conviction thereof be sentenced to pay, at the discre- 
tion of the Court, any sum not less than $500, nor exceeding $1000, one-half to the 
party prosecuting, and the other to the use of the State, 

Sec. 4. That if any person or persons claiming any negro or mulatto as a fugitive 
from servitude or labor, shall under any pretence of authority whatsoever, violently 
and tumultously seize upon and carry away in a riotous, violent, tumultous and un. 
reasonable manner, and so as to disturb or endanger public peace, any negro or mu- 
latto within this Commonwealth, either with or without the intention of taking such 
negro or mulatto before any district or circuit judge, the person or persons so offending 
shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction shall be sentenced to pay a 
fine of not less than $100, nor more than $1000, with costs of prosecution, and be 
confined in the county jail for any period at the discretion of the court, not exceeding 
three months. 

Sec 5. That nothing in this act shall be'eonstrued to take away what is hereby de- 
clared to be invested in the judges of this Commonwealth, the right, power and author- 
ity at all times, on application made, to issue the writ of habeas corpus, and to inquire 
into the causes and legality of the arrest or imprisonment of any human being within 
this Commonwealth. 

Sec 6. It shall not be lawful to use any jail or prison of this Commonwealth for the 
detention of any person claimed as a fugitive from servitude or labor, except in cases 
where jurisdiction may lawfully be taken by any judge, under the provisions of this 
act ; and any jailer, or keeper of any prison, or other person, who shall offend against 
the provision of this section, shall on conviction pay a fine of $500, one-half for the 
use of the Commonwealth, and the other half to the person who prosecutes ; and shal 1 
moreover henceforth be removed from office, and be incapable of holding such office of 
jailor or keeper of a prison at any time during his natural life. 

Sec 7. That so much of the act of the General Assembly, entitled "An act for the 
gradual abolition of slavery," passed March 1, 1780, as authorizes the masters or own- 
ers of slaves to bring and retain such slaves within this Commonwealth for the period 
of six months, in involuntary servitude, or for any period of time whatsoever, and so 
much of said act as prevents a slave from giving testimony against any person whatso- 
ever, be and the same is hereby repealed. 

WILMOT PROVISO RESOLUTIONS. 

The Wilmot Proviso. 
That there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any territory on the 
continent of America, which shall hereafter be acquired by or annexed to the United 
States, by virtue of this appropriation, or in any other manner whatsoever, except for 
crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted. Provided always, That any 
person escaping into such territory, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in 
any one of the United States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed, and carried out 
of such territory to the person claiming his or her labor or service. 
Resolutions of Vermont — Jan. 28, 1847. 
The Legislature of Vermont adopted a Resolution to the effect, that it will not give 
its countenance, aid or assent to the admission into the Federal Union of any new State 
whose Constitution tolerates slavery, and appeals to each of the other States to concur 
in that declaration, accompanied by another, instructing its Senators and Representa- 
tives in Congress to use their best efforts to carry the Resolution into effect. 
Resolutions of JYeiv York — Feb. 6, 1847. 
Resolved, That if any territory is hereafter acquired by the United States, or annexed 
thereto, the act by which such territory is acquired or annexed, whatever such act may 



APPENDIX. 

be, should contain an unalterable fundamental article or provision, whereby slavery or 
involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, shall be forever excluded from 
jhe territory acquired or annexed. 

Resolutions of Pennsylvania — Feb. 8, 1847. 

The Legislature of the State of Pennsylvania, the next largest in the Union, adapted 
a Resolution requesting their Senators and Representatives in Congress to vote against 
any measure whatever by which territory will accrue to the Union, unless, as a part ot 
the fundamental law upon which any compact or treaty for this purpose is based, slavery 
or involuntary servitude, except for crime, shall be forever prohibited. 
Resolutions of Rhode Island — Feb. 10, 1847. 

That while we yield to no State in the Union in our condemnation of the system of 
slavery, which the errors of past ages have transmitted to us, and will cheerfully co- 
operate in any just and constitutional measures to terminate it, we are not insensible to 
the difficulties of the position of our Southern brethren, nor disinclined to fulfil in its 
true spirit every obligation and duty imposed upon us by the terms of our compact as 
embodied in the Constitution of the United States ; but submitting ourselves implicitly 
to the requirements of that instrument, we insist upon a like compliance by other par- 
ties to said compact with all its material stipulations, express or implied. We protest, 
therefore, against the acquisition of territory by conquest or otherwise beyond the pre- 
sent limits of the United States, for the purpose of establishing therein Slavebolding 
States, as deranging the balance of political power once so happily established between 
our confederated communities, and as manifestly in violation of the spirit and intent of 
the Constitution. We protest against the introduction ©f slaves, upon any terms, into 
any territory of the United States, whether of old or recent acquisition, where slavery 
does not exist, or has not immemorially existed ; and we hold that so far from aiming 
to extend an institution like slavery over a wide territory than is now pervaded by it, it 
is clearly the interest, no less than the duty of the Slaveholding States, to circumscribe 
its operation within their own limits, and to provide, if possible, for its gradual extin- 
guishment whenever public sentiment will permit it. 

Resolutions of Ohio — Feb. 15, 1847. 

That the Senators and Representatives from this State, in the Congress of the United 

States be and are hereby respectfully requested to procure the passage of measures in 

that body, providing for the exclusion of slavery from the territory of Oregon, and also 

from any other territory that now is, or hereafter may be, annexed to the United States. 

Resolutions of Neiv- Jersey — Feb. 19, 1847. 
The Resolution adopted by the Legislature of New Jersey instructs their Senators 
and Representatives in Congress to use their best efforts to secure, as a fundamental 
condition to any act of annexation of any territory hereafter to be acquired by the Uni- 
ted States as an indemnity for claims, that slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a 
punishment for crime, shall be forever excluded from the territory to be annexed. 

Resolutions ofJYeiv Hampshire — Feb. 19, 1847. 

That the Senators and Representatives in Congress from this State be respectfully 
requested to urge the passage of measures for the extinction of slavery in the District of 
Columbia, for its exclusion from Oregon, and other territories, that now or at any time 
hereafter may belong to the United States, for all constitutional measures for the sup- 
pression of the domestic slave trade, and to resist the admission of any new State into 
the Union while tolerating slavery. 

Resolutions of Michigan — March 1, 1847. 

That in the acquisition of new territory, whether by purchase, conquest, or otherwise, 
we deem it the duty of the General Government to extend over the same of the Ordi- 
nance of 1787 (being the one prohibiting slavery Northwest of the Ohio) with all its 
rights and privileges, conditions and immunities. 

Resolutions of Massachusetts — March 1, 1847. 
Resolved unanimously, That the Legislature of Massachusetts views the existence of 
human slavery within the limits of the United States as a great calamity, and immense 
moral and political evil, which ought to be abolished as soon as that end can be pro- 
perly and constitutionally attained ; and that its extension should be uniformly and earn- 
estly opposed by all good and patriotic men throughout the Union. 



APPENDIX. 71 

Resolved unanimously, That the people of Massachusetts will strenuously resist the 
annexation of any new territory to this Union in which the institution of slavery is to 
be tolerated or established ; and the Legislature, in behalf of the people of this common- 
wealth, do hereby solemnly protest against the acquisition of any additional territory 
without an express provision by Congress that there shall be neither slavery nor invol- 
antary servitude in such territory, otherwise than for the punishment of crime. 
Resolutions of Maine, passed August 3, 1847, with the voles thereon in the lower 

Horse. 

Resolved, That Maine, by the action of ner State Government, and by her repre- 
sentation in Congress, should abide cheerfully by the letter and spirit of the concessions 
of the Constitution oi the United States ; at the same time resisting firmly all demands 
for their enlargement or extension. Yeas, 122 — Nays, 1. 

Resolved, That the sentiment of this State is profound, sincere, and almost univer- 
sal, that the influence of slavery upon productive energy is like the blight of mildew ; 
that it is a moral and social evil ; that it does violence to the rights of man, as a think- 
ing, reasonable and responsible being. Influenced by such considerations, this State 
will oppose the introduction of slavery into any territory which may be acquired as an 
indemnity for claims upon Mexico. Yeas, 124 — Nays, 8. 

Resolved, That in the acquisition of any free territory, whether by purchase or other- 
wise, we deem it the duty of the General Government to extend over the same the Or- 
dinance of seventeen hundred and eighty-seven, with all its rights and privileges, con- 
ditions and immunities. Yeas, 126 — Nays, 6. 



ANTI-WILMOT PROVISO RESOLUTIONS. 

Mr. Calhoun's Resolutions, submiltcd in the Senate of the United States, February 

1, 1847. 
Resolved, That the territories of the United States belong to the several States com- 
posing this Union, and are held by them as their joint and common property. 

Resolved, That Congress, as the joint agent and representative of the States of this 
Union, has no right to make any law, or do any act whatever, that shall directly, or by 
its effects, make any discrimination between the States of this Union, by which any of 
them shall be deprived of its full and equal right in any territory of the United States, 
acquired or to be acquired. 

Resolved, That the enactment of any law which should directly, or by its effects, 
deprive the citizens of any of the States of this Union from emigrating with their pro- 
perty into any of the territories of the United States, will make such discrimination, 
and would, therefore, be a violation of the Constitution, and the rights of the States 
from which such citizens emigrated, and in derogation of that perfect equality which 
belongs to them as members of this Union, and would tend directly to subvert the Union 
itself. 

Resolved, That, as a fundamental principle in our political creed, a people in form- 
ing a Constitution have the unconditional right to form and adopt the government 
which they may think best calculated to secure their liberty, prosperity and happiness, 
and that in conformity thereto, no other condition is imposed by the Federal Constitu- 
tion on a State in order to be admitted into the Union, except that its Constitution shall 
be strictly republican ; and that the imposition of any other by Congress would not 
only be in violation of the Constitution, but in direct conflict with the principle on 
which our political system rests. 

Resohdions of the Legislature of Virginia. 
Resolved, That the Government of the United States has no control directly or in- 
directly, mediately or immediately, over the Institution of Slavery, and that in taking 
any such control it transcends the limits of its legitimate functions by destroying the 
internal organization of the sovereignties which formed it. 

Resolved, That under no circumstances will this body recognise as binding any en- 
actment of the Federal Government, which has for its object the prohibition of Slavery 
in any Territory to be acquired either by conquest or treaty, south of the line of the 
Missouri compromise, holding it to be the natural and independent right of each citizen 



72 APPENDIX. 

of each and every State of the confederacy, to reside with his property, of whafepr 
description in any Territory which may be acquired by the arms of the United STftea 
or yielded by treaty with any foreign power. 

Resolved, That this Assembly holds it to be the duty of every man in every section 
of this confederacy, if the Union is dear to him, to oppose the passage of any law, foi 
whatever purpose, by which Territory to be acquired may be subject\o such a restric-' 
ticn. 

Resolved, That the passage of the Wilmot Proviso by the House of Representative 
of the United States makes it the duty of every slaveholding State and the citizens 
thereof, as they value their dearest privileges, their independence and their rights of 
property, to take firm, united and concerted action in this emergency. 

Resolutions of the Democratic Convention of Alabama. 

[After adopting the four resolutions of Virginia, as above,] 

12. Resolved, That as one of the most effective modes " of firm, united and con- 
certed action" recommended by the above resolutions — of resisting the interference by 
the General Government with a viesv to establish a discrimination, as degrading as it is 
injurious to the Slaveholding States, the members of this Convention solemnly pledge 
themselves to each other, and recommend to their fellow-citizens in those States, to 
withhold their votes for the office of President of the United States from any citizen 
who shall not previously to the election distinctly, unequivocally, and publicly avow his 
opposition to all such interference. 

Resolutions of the Democratic Convention of Georgia. 

Resolved, That the Democratic party, while it asserts the rights of citizens of any 
State to settle in any of the territories of the United States with their property, yet in 
the spirit of mutual " concession" in which our Union originated, and by which alone it 
can be preserved, we are still willing to abide by the provisions and the geographical 
line of the Missouri Compromise. 

Resolved, That we adopt the four following resolutions as passed by the General As- 
sembly of Virginia as amended. 

[And after adopting here the four resolutions of Virginia as above,] 

Resolved further by this Convention, That the Democratic party of Georgia will give 
their support to no candidate for the Presidency of the United States who does not un- 
conditionally, clearly and unequivocally, declare his opposition to the principles and 
provisions of the Wilmot Proviso. 



END OF THE AFPENDIX, 



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